Tampa Bay Fishing Report

Capt. TJ Stewart
September 6, 2005
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report

There's a big one for you!

Well between the weather and the fact that I went out of town for a few days I did not get a whole lot of days to fish. But the days that we did fish we did really good. The Red tide in our area has let up quite a bit but you have to watch where you take your bait, especially first thing in the morning. .

I will start with the Red fish one day the bite is on and the next you have to work a little harder but we have not had too much trouble finding some fish to cooperate.. The biggest problem over the past week was having enough bait because it has gotten a little tougher on the flats. This time of year it is really nice to have lots of bait to keep the fish in a frenzy. The Red fish of the week was a 26 inch fish.

Then it comes down to the Snook fishing. We have had a lot of luck with these fish and. managed to catch a number of them each trip. This is where we have had a little trouble with the bait. Most of these fish we are catching are a good ways up on the flat and the fish are doing fine but the bait just does not like it. Each trip we did managed to catch a few real nice Snook in the 26-32 inch range which are slot size fish and the season is opening in a few days. We did have one gentlemen have the day of a life time. First he managed to boat a Snook about 32 inches long which was a very nice fish but it was small compared to the 38 inch Snook he caught just a few minutes later. What a fish as you can see in the picture.

Last but not least we have the Tarpon. We had the smaller Tarpon almost in a frenzy and managed to hook 7-8 fish in about 45 minutes. Four of these fish were in 5 minutes almost following the boat and every time you got the bait far enough back you hooked a fish. We jumped 7-8 and had even more bites then that. So hopefully the next trip will be as good.

Well I wrote this report a week a go and have not got to put it up but the fishing has been awesome!! You will have to see my next report for details.

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