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Tampa Bay - South Shore
Capt. Fred Everson
May 21, 2007
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Water temperature in the Gulf shot up to 86 degrees, and local fishing was better than it has been in weeks. Spanish mackerel have made their way into the upper reaches of the bay at last. Early last week we caught a pair of 28 inch mackerel at the mouth of the Little Manatee River in front of Sand Key. I was actually looking to catch blacktip sharks there, as I had been seeing some big fish cruising the flats, but all we caught were mackerel and catfish.
Capt. Danny Guarino reported a good day on mackerel on the range markers off Port Manatee. He said his client also caught a 25-pound cobia that swam up to the boat in deep water. Guarino also landed two sharks in the four-foot range.
Capt. Lee Blick of Brandon reported a good day fishing for mackerel in the deep waters off Piney Point earlier this week. He also said he got into some oversized redfish on the flats.
Thursday was a perfect day to look for cobia, and I heard that there were a couple of big fish weighed in at Southshore Bait and Tackle in Ruskin. Keli Emery and I made several passes across the flats south of Apollo Beach, but didn’t see any cobia and only two eagle rays. When the tide got higher, we went up into the backcountry and looked at a couple of passes, but saw only two or three redfish.
We headed offshore to net some threadfins and a single short cobia came out from the range marker to greet us. It disappeared beneath the boat and I never saw it again. We caught some threads and headed back inshore south of Sand Key. I chunked some bait and chummed it into a pass, and the bite was on. I got broke off immediately by a good snook, and Keli landed a 26 inch redfish, a short red, and a couple of snook – all on cut bait rigged on jig heads.
For more information, call Capt. Fred Everson at 813 830 8890, or visit his website at tampabayfishingguide.com.
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