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Speckled trout action remains excellent in Sarasota!
Capt. Jim Klopfer
July 28, 2012
Sarasota - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing was good once again this week, particularly towards the end as tides improved. Also, while the baitfish is small, it is abundant and just large enough not to get "gilled" in the net. Chumming with live or fresh dead threadfins and pilchards will bring the fish right up to the boat and keep the action going later in the morning when the fish sometimes quit hitting lures. Once the fish were "lit up" behind the boat, anglers caught speckled trout, Spanish mackerel, jacks, mangrove snapper, ladyfish and more using live bait, jigs, and flies.
David Collins, Tanner Dean, Kerri haugland and her son caught around 80 fish on Tuesday morning. Most of the fish were trout, with a pair going 18" and a couple more in the slot, Spanish mackerel, jack crevelle, sea bass, and a big sail cat. Gulp! Shrimp and Cotee jigs fooled them at the Moorings and Middlegrounds.
We had to work a little bit harder for them on Wednesday, for whatever reason the bite was a little off. We caught fish at every spot, but never really got them cranked up. Jason Choy from Teddington, London took his sons Loren (14) and Tristan (16) out on a charter. They ended up with a decent number of trout ( on 17" and another 20" that shook off at the boat), a mackerel, a sea bass, and a ladyfish on Gulp! Shrimp. After 5,000 or so charters, Loren did something I have never seen before. He caught a Spanish mackerel that had old line wrapper around it, so old it actually was part of the skin. The fish wasn't hooked, but the jig got tangled up in the old line and that is how he caught the fish. Very strange.
Fishing was very good on Thursday for Joel Joiner and his wife Orelia from Riverview, FL. We started off catching speckled trout to 18" at the Moorings on Gulp! Shrimp. The bite slowed a bit and while running to a new spot I came across a nice bunch of bait. I loaded up on three tosses and went to the Middlegrounds and started chumming. Joel caught a 22" trout, his largest, along with a couple more keepers. Orelia and Joel caught more trout, ladyfish, jacks, sea bass, and mangrove snapper on live bait. Joel wanted to try a little fly fishing, so we finished up at the Radio Tower flat where he caught several trout, a jack, and a ladyfish on a green and white Clouser.
I picked up Scott Blackledge from DeForest, WI at Centennial park at 6:30 a.m. on Friday morning and ran across Sarasota Bay to the Moorings. We put 3 nice slot trout to 19" in the box using Gulp! Shrimp. The previous two days the fish were shallow, this morning we had more success fishing deeper, 6'-8', using Gulp! on jig heads. With dinner on ice, we decided to change it up, so I netted up some bait. Chumming the first spot near Big Pass resulted in non-stop action, mostly ladyfish. The nest spot was similar, a bite on every cast, except this time it was mostly jacks. Both ladyfish and jacks fight hard and are fun on light tackle!
Phil Steward from MA, his cousin Bill Sawyer and Bill's 13 year old grandson Drew Kobus went out with me on Saturday. We started off at the Radio Tower flat catching speckled trout. It slowed down and a move to Marker #5 resulted in a little more action. I netted up some bait and from then on it was non-stop catching on the deep flats. Spanish mackerel to 2 pounds, a pair of 20" trout,. sea bass, mangrove snapper, jacks and ladyfish kept the rods bent until we quit at 11:00.
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