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Fishing Report for Homosassa, Florida
Capt. Mike Locklear
October 10, 2002
Homosassa - Saltwater Fishing Report
Homosassa Fishing with Bill Miller
Homosassa fishing in October is one of the best months to be a guide. The early morning air feels like fall and the ride out to the flats is very pleasant. The real advantage is that by being out on the water nearly every day enables you to keep up with where the fish are living.
Limits of redfish have been easily gotten and the size has dropped to an average of 22 inches. Catching a redfish over 27 inches is still a possibility, but the big schools of oversized redfish have moved off shore to spawn.
Live shrimp or pinfish works well for the reds and the best times to go is just before or after the new or full moon tides. Johnson Silver minnows in the ¼ to ½ ounce work well for reds too.
Dave Bailey and his family enjoyed a full day with me aboard the Flatfisher 1. Everyone caught spotted seatrout and after a couple of hours fishing we headed in for lunch. A remote island was picked and a full meal was cooked including the fresh catch of the day, homemade hushpuppies, cole slaw, beans and all the trimmings.
After lunch we headout back out and caught 5 keeper redfish using pinfish and shrimp. The largest redfish was about 23 inches.
After more than 20 years of knowing Capt. Bill Miller of Tampa, I got to take him fishing. Bill has a TV show and wanted to me host him to show his viewers the Homosassa area.
Bill is a great angler and a world-class professional fisherman and guide. They just do not come any nicer than Bill. Miller brought up his cameraman Wes and David Brown whom is an award winning outdoors writer. The four of us left out casually from MacRae’s dock at 9:00 that morning after talking shop to Mercury dealer, Skip Turvaville of Gulf Coast Marine.
By 10:30, we arrived to the grass flats and Bill caught the first keeper trout on a Cajun Thunder cork rig. David Brown landed a 5-pound redfish on a top water lure. We caught some other fish and a few more throwback trout. Some of the species caught were lizardfish, puffer fish, jack crevalle and redfish.
The highlight of the trip for me was that Bill spotted a tarpon of about 80 pounds with his fin sticking out. We had a fly rod handy but the big poon did not hang around long enough for us to get it out and ready to cast.
Another highlight was a spotted seatrout kept striking David Brown’s top water Mirrolure but just never got hooked. The fish was about 3 pounds and kept on smacking that lure all the way to the boat.
Another interesting scenario was when Brown had a small jack on and a 150-pound Bull Shark made a pass to eat it right by the boat!
At 1:00, we decided to head in where I put on a big spread for the guys, cooking them up a fresh shore dinner. The hushpuppies were really the treat.
At about 3:00, we lazily headed back to the Homosassa keys where redfish were waiting on our offerings of shrimp. I think I was so full from eating all that food, that I could not find the big school of reds for Bill and David. They did manage to catch several redfish in three hours to complete the film footage of the show.
It was a pleasure to see Bill and if you live in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area you can watch the hour long “Hooked On Fishing” show on Time Warner Channel 47 each Thursday night at 6:30 pm or go to www.billmiller.com for more information.
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