Tampa Bay Fishing Report

Capt. TJ Stewart
August 10, 2004
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report

Tarpon feeding!

This week we are bringing you a report from the keys. We spent a week on Tavanier Key we did a little fishing ,diving for lobster, and feeding. It was a week of fun and a big change.

To start all of the fishing that we did down in the keys was off shore. The first day we started early that morning we caught some bait just like we do here at home some shiners and glass minnows. Then we ran out about 10 miles before we started looking for weed lines. We found a bunch but they were not holding any fish. We worked our way out about 15 miles found some big weed patches but still no fish but there was more bait on these weed lines. Then we found a patch of weeds that was not real big but were holding a few dolphin. We managed to catch about 5 fish nothing really big but they were a lot of fun. There was a few more fish around but they would not eat any more. We rode out about 4 more miles and did not see much. We came back in to about 14 miles offshore and found some Black fin Tuna we caught 2 on the light tackle these fish put up a real good fight. Then we decided to go back in to the dock but on our way in we found a few good weed lines that we just had to check. The first fish we found on our ride in was a Cobia that would have probably weighed about 60 lbs probably being the key word. We did manage to find a Triple tail. It was a nice fish and the first Triple tail I ever caught. The second day we gave it another try repeated the same process caught bait and went out about 16 miles and caught a few more dolphin. With the wind that has been hitting the keys it made the fish harder to find.

Then we have the lobstering this was a whole lot more successful. We had a lot bigger crew but we did manage to catch our limit each day which was 36 Lobsters. It was a slow start but when we found the lobster we caught our limit in about 30 minutes which was really good. We were free diving for most of the lobster we caught. The second day was a little tougher but we did manage to get our limit.

Then we have the feeding no I don’t mean us. I mean a 50 to a 200 lb Tarpon eating bait right out of your hand. Fish jumping 2-3 feet out of the water to get the bait out of your hand. The name of the place that we went to was called Robbie’s marina. They let you feed Tarpon from your hand and you can watch hundreds of Tarpon roll around the dock. If you are going to the keys any time soon you have to stop in and check it out!

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