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Tampa Bay - South Shore
Capt. Fred Everson
January 22, 2007
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fog settled in over Tampa Bay for a couple of days this week. Thursday and Friday were radar days, but they were at least calm.
The huge schools of big jack crevalles have done the disappearing act. Capt. Chet Jennings said he looked for them in the Little Manatee River last week with a live well full of white bait, but never found them. He netted the bait underneath the Skyway fishing pier.
Capt. Larry Malinoski got into some grouper inside the Skyway trolling jigs on number two planers. The biggest fish he put in the box was a 15 pounder.
Early in the week I looked for bonnethead sharks on the flats south of Apollo Beach and didn’t find any, but conditions were less than ideal. It was pretty windy and the water was murky. I did find a few redfish, but managed to hook only one on a jerk bait.
The following day I returned to the same flat with clear skies and calm winds and saw hundreds of sharks. We caught plenty on live shrimp fished under floats. After several fish refused a plastic crab I replaced it with a live shrimp rigged on the 3/8 ounce Rip Tide jig head. First cast to a pair of fish cruising over the sand resulted in a hookup with a fat 25-inch fish that weighed nearly six pounds on my lip gripper. When redfish refuse one type of lure or bait, you have to try something else.
I got into the trout and the ladyfish one afternoon this week at Sand Key, fishing live shrimp under floats. We were hooking and releasing quite a few fish until a dolphin came in and started eating every ladyfish we put back. I moved to the north side of the river, but the dolphin followed us all the way, so we finally quit.
For more information, call Capt. Fred Everson at 813 830 8890, or visit his website at tampabayfishingguide.com.
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