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Tampa Bay - South Shore
Capt. Fred Everson
January 2, 2004
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Shell Point Bait and Tackle Holiday Fishing Report for Southshore Tampa Bay
Shell Point Bait and Tackle Holiday Fishing Report
Winter came and went away the week before Christmas and after it was gone the fishing got hot. Let’s hope this unseasonable warm weather stays with us for a while.
Billy Jordan of Ruskin put nine keeper grouper in the boat trolling the shipping channel between Bahia Beach and the Skyway.
Capt. Chet Jennings reported a good day at the Apollo Beach power plant on jack crevalles and shark. He said he found some bait in the hot water outflow and was able to chum up some big jacks.
Trout are fair game again and anglers who put in at the shop on the New Year’s Day season opener reported hot fishing. Most of the trout I heard about were caught with live shrimp.
I have been poling the flats for the past 10 days and the spring like conditions have made for great sight fishing. There have been a few pods of big redfish out over the sand on low tide. Nothing easy about catching redfish in 12 inches of clear water, but it’s as exciting as it gets. Some days figuring out what they will eat is a dilemma, but RipTide’s two-inch realistic crab has become my go to bait. I rig the crab in the corner of the carapace, just as you would a live crab, and then crawl it slowly across the bottom. The take is gentler than what you get with a baitfish imitation. Usually the bait just stops, and when that happens I set the hook. The reds we caught last week were all between 26 and 32 inches.
I also like a very long limber rod for this type of open water fishing. Long casts with eight pound test line have caught the most fish, and this is also the right situation for 20 pound fluorocarbon leaders. I try to cast well beyond the redfish and in front of their line of travel so that I can ease the bait into the fish’s line of sight without spooking it. The crab has been most effective, but I have also hooked fish on gold metal flake curly tails, white shad tails, and 7MR Mirrolure twitch baits. Gold and Chartreuse and gold have been the hot colors in clear, bright water.
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