Tampa Bay, Tarpon Springs, Clearwater & St. Petersburg

Capt. Clay Eavenson
December 26, 2007
Tarpon Springs - Saltwater Fishing Report

It's Not How You Start...

...it's

how you finish! The trout bite has been really good lately and the

average size fish has been fairly large. With this in mind, and

knowing that we had a negative low tide in the morning in Tarpon

Springs, I made plans to take Steve and Heidi to some troughs out by

Anclote to get on some trout. There were fish there but we struggled

for bites for a good 2.5 hours. I must have just missed the bite

there or just missed the fish because I had a friend within earshot

of us that limited out on big trout in 30 minutes. We did catch 4 or

five but it was disappointing to compared to what has been going on

for me out there.

 

I couldn't

take the slow trout bite anymore so I told Steve and Heidi that we

were going after some real game fish. So with a live well full of

pinfish (and one keeper trout), we headed north. It took about 15

minutes to find my redfish. Only problem was that they didn't want

to eat. the tide had just started to become slack and I was hoping

the bite would kick in once it started ripping out. Once the tide

started flowing, the bite still didn't turn on. We could see the

fish, they just wouldn't eat. It was time to try some different

presentations. We took the corks off and threw out tail hooked

pinfish. That coaxed one bite but that was it. Then I lightened the

leader to 20lb and started cutting pinfish in half. That was the

ticket!

 

The bite

lasted a solid 1.5-2 hours. the fish would never stop moving though.

So after we'd hook up with one or two reds we'd have to move farther

down the shoreline to keep up with the fish.  I lost track of

how many redfish we caught but he was a few double hook-ups and even

caught the too biggest trout of the day, on cut pinfish no less.

That was a new one for me.

 

Anyway... the

day started slow but finished with a bang. It's like I always say,

"Inshore fishing is often hours of boredom interrupted by moments of

chaos." Luckily for us, we had more "chaos" than "boredom" today.

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