Tampa Bay, Tarpon Springs, Clearwater & St. Petersburg

Capt. Clay Eavenson
November 5, 2007
Tarpon Springs - Saltwater Fishing Report

It was all so cool.

 

What a cool day. Literally and

figuratively. A good friend of mine, Capt. Greg Devault, was

going to be out of town today and referred some of his

family friends to me for a day on the water chasing redfish

and trout in the

Tarpon

Springs area. Leonard, Andrew, and Emily own boats of their

own that they can use when they are down here visiting from

Pittsburgh but they wanted to have someone take them out and

show them a few tips and tricks. I was more than happy to

oblige.



The time changed this past weekend so I had to get up an

hour earlier to head to the ramp to catch bait. There was a

brisk chill in the air as I dropped the boat in the water

and I wished I had thought to wear pants instead of shorts.

I did have a light jacket in the boat so I knew I would

survive. Leonard had said that he had tried for greenbacks

this past weekend with limited success and he wondered if he

had done something wrong. After catching bait, I arrived at

the boat ramp to pick up my crew for the day and I was able

to confirm that he had done nothing wrong. I too had trouble

finding the little snook candies. I did however manage to

fill the well with plenty of pinfish and that was fine to me

because I know redfish love them.



After the introductions and loading the boat, we hit a dock

near the ramp that has been successful for both snook and

redfish in the past, merely because the tide was right for

it. The fish however didn't get the message. We only gave

that spot 5 minutes and headed to the only spot South of the

Anclote River that I wanted to hit today. When we arrived we

could see a few mullet milling around and that's always a

good sign. We had to reposition the boat once before Emily

had managed to coax the first redfish of the day to the

boat. For a good hour after that we managed several more

bites that resulted in a couple of keepers that went in the

well. One of which had been hooked before as evidenced by

the hook lodged in his throat and the line still hanging out

of his mouth. That guy must have been hungry.



After the bite died down here, we headed North of the

Anclote River and North of Gulf Harbors to find some

productive oyster bars. It wasn't long before Leonard had

hooked up with the first fish at this spot and we all

thought

it

was a lower slot redfish. It turned out to be a very nice

sized trout. Because we were North of Fred Howard park, the

season is still open for trout, so this guy went in the

well. We continued to work the edges of the oyster bars for

another couple of hours and we boated another nice trout and

a few more redfish to round out the day.



The productive bait for the day was both live and cut

pinfish all fished 12" under a weighted float. We fished

both the last of the incoming tide as well as the first of

the leaving tide and the fish bit on both. Cuts around

oyster bars and shallow flats near the edge of a channel

were the hot spots. And, apparently the best bites are to be

had by really cool 12 year old girls. Emily stole the show

today landing the most redfish all by herself.



Cool weather, cool people, and hot fishing. What more can

you ask for?

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