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Tampa Bay - South Shore
Capt. Fred Everson
July 3, 2006
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Monday evening I fished the mouth of the Little Manatee River at Sand Point with Capt. John Arico of Arcadia. I was hoping to get to the Spoil Island for the swift, falling tide and some catch and release snook action, but the stout wind out of the West precluded that option. Instead we put the anchor out less than half a mile from Shell Point and threw a variety of hard and soft plastic lures into the current. The only bite that was steady was catfish. We did catch one snook on a plastic shrimp, and a keeper redfish on a white shad tail rigged on a 3/8-ounce jig head.
By Wednesday the wind was dead flat calm in the morning. I decided to run some of the range markers and channel buoys in the middle of the bay. I immediately saw the wakes of two cobia on the first tripod marker and reached for a light rod rigged with a plastic shrimp. The smaller fish beat the larger to the bait and soon had me wrapped around a piling.
I started fishing on the range marker next to the Bahia Beach reef, and worked my way north towards Apollo Beach. I never saw another cobia or tripletail, but there were little Spanish mackerel on every pod of bait. On the outskirts of MacDill I turned around and headed back towards Cockroach Bay on plane.
Water clarity inside the reef was murky, so I idled back towards the Little Manatee River on the 6-foot edge of the flats. Here I saw one large blacktip shark, and it made a run at my jig, but gave up the chase when he saw the boat.
Near the mouth of the river near Sand Key the water clarity was much better, so I mounted the poling platform. A long cast to a pair of redfish in a pothole produced a 19-inch fish.
Visit Capt. Fred online at www.tampabayfishingguide.com or call him at (813) 830-8890.
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