Tampa Bay Fishing Report

Capt. TJ Stewart
May 14, 2005
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report

3 or more!

Well I do not think the weather could get much better then the past week. We had a little wind later in the afternoons but the mornings were great. We have had a lot of really great days.

Let’s start with the Red fish. We managed to get these fish into a frenzy a time or two. It’s getting to be that time of year when these fish are traveling in large schools. As the water temp gets up and the summer gets closer we will have a lot of great Red fish fishing. Most of the Red fish this week were in the 18-27 inch range, really nice fish. The Red fish of the week was a 27 3/4 inch fish.

Then if you want to talk about getting fish into a frenzy we can talk a little Trout, or should I say a whole lot of Trout. These fish have been biting good. If you are wanting to bring a few fish home we had no trouble catching a nice mess of fish. The Trout are mostly hanging around the flats which are holding large amounts of bait . So if you are looking for Trout find one of the flats that has a lot of bait on it and get on a grass end close to the bait and you should have no problem catching a few Trout The Trout of the week was a 25 inch fish.

If you’re looking for a little Snook you can get it. The Snook fishing has been good if you ask it all has been good but we have not been doing as much Snook fishing with the fish out of season. But like the rest of the fish these fish have been hanging around in pretty good schools and we had a lot of luck catching large numbers of these fish. The Snook of the week was a 31 inch fish.

Certainly not last or least we have the Tarpon fishing. It’s starting to get a little better just about every trip we have managed to hook a few fish. We have hooked a whole lot more then we have landed but let me tell you there is no experience like hooking a Tarpon and the fish pulling a 100 ft of line off your reel in seconds and then leaping out of the water 6 ft into the air. Needless to say it speaks for itself. We jumped a few really big fish last week some of the fish were 150 lbs or bigger. We did boat a few real nice fish. Here are two that are both over 80 lbs. The guys did a great job pulling these fish in.

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