Tampa South Shore Fishing- January 2012
Capt. Sean Hagen
January 28, 2012
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
On a recent Tampa fishing trip Capt. Sean Hagen, Capt. Sean Rice, and Capt. Mike Murray got together to do a little scouting on the south shore of Tampa Bay. We started the day with a run to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to see if there was still white bait holding along the concrete structures. After a bit of driving around the pilings, we saw the bait holding a little deeper than normal but schooled up real thick. After a few throws of the net, Capt. Sean Hagen had us enough bait for the day just in case the snook decided they wanted to play.
We made a short run to one of the many small coves that the beautiful south shore of Tampa Bay is known for. As we scouted around in the tower, we noticed what appeared to be the dark silhouettes of over one hundred snook . We anchored the boat a long cast from where we saw the silhouettes and presented some of the white baits in various different ways. Over the next half an hour, we presented every bait and artificial we had on the boat. Finally, we got one of these snook to take a piece of cut pinfish. After a nice battle, we boated a healthy snook of about 26" and after a few quick photos the fish was revived and sent back to its home. We fished this spot for another half an hour with no other bites from the snook. We climbed back into the tower and drove close enough to the spot so we could see all the silhouettes and sure enough they were all snook, well over one hundred for sure! Although these snook didn't want to eat, it was good to see so many of them. It was also good to know where we could go back to and fish once our waters begin to warm up in a few short months.
We made a move to a nearby oyster bar surrounded by deeper water. We set up the boat so we could fish the windward side of the oyster bar and deployed a variety of different baits. Within a few minutes a nice sized flounder that fell for a gold flake jig comes over the gunnell. A few minutes later a big sheepshead is taken on a large live shrimp. This pattern keeps up for well over an hour with four keeper flounder and four more keeper sheepshead boated. We decide to give the snook another shot with the afternoon sun having warmed the water slightly. We spent another half hour on them but they still didn't want to cooperate with us.
With just a short ride back to the ramp we enjoyed the afternoon sun and talked about how nice Capt. Sean's new boat rides and how quick the Suzuki four stroke motor runs. We also noted on how excited we were to fish those spots again in the spring. Contact Capt. Mike or Capt. Sean to book your spring trips before they fill up as spring is right around the corner!
Please vist: WWW.Tampabay-FishingCharters.com
Target Species:
sheepshead,flounder, snook
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