Action Heats up on Southshore Tampa Bay
Capt. Fred Everson
April 28, 2008
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
As winds moderated to less than gale force for much of the week and water temperatures rose into the mid 70s action on southshore Tampa Bay heated up.
Early last week Terry Akroyd of Ruskin and I decided to take a trip across the bay to Pinellas Point to look for some trout. We crossed the sandbar on the last hour of the outgoing tide, and the bite started off with a bang. Akroyd scored the first keeper on a 52 MS Mirrolure – his favorite artificial for trout. I was fishing a RipTide jig head rigged with a blue and silver Curtaitler, and almost landed the biggest trout of the day, but the hook pulled at the side of the boat. Trout are soft mouthed, so treble hooks make more sense here. Nevertheless we caught two limits and the action got hotter as the day wore on and the tide rose. The fish got bigger towards the end of the day, too, and we left them biting.
The following day I ventured north with Gabe Krakowski of Brooklyn, NY and we began by wading the mangrove shoreline south of Apollo Beach. We didn't find much there until we came back to the boat where Gabe hooked a 22 inch red on a plastic shrimp. The tide was getting higher than I like to wade in, so we motored offshore and drifted back in with the seabreeze. Gabe hooked two more reds on the stinky plastic bait, and one of them was 28 inches.
We also saw a couple of big bull sharks, and a single cobia. The cobia took a swipe at a plastic eel, missed, and then would have nothing further to do with us.
No sign of threadfins in the bay as yet, but that should change this week. Pilchards have been hard to come by just about everywhere inside the bay.
You can visit the captain's website at Tampabayfishingguide.com for charter info, or phone him at 813 830 8890.
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