Tampa Bay Fishing Report

Capt. TJ Stewart
March 27, 2006
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report

Its here!

Well lets start this with a bang the fishing is going off. It has finally warmed up enough where the fishing is getting really good. The bait has started to show up in the bay. One good way to find the bait in the bay is to look for the birds diving. Most of the time when you find the the birds on the shallow flats they are feeding on some kind of bait.

Well let’s start this with the Red fish these fish have been a little tough to catch. It is not because there is not a lot of Red fish around they are just tough. Water clarity has been one of our biggest problems. The water is so clear that you can not get very close to the fish. We need the water temp to get up a little warmer then I think these fish will turn on better. It’s not the lack of fish because there is a lot of Red fish around on most of the flats in some very big schools of fish. We have managed to catch some great fish the past few weeks. The biggest Red fish this past week was a Red fish that was 29 inches that this young man caught. It was a great fish but I still have the thought of how hard the 32 inch Red fish that we caught last week fought on the fly rod. It was awesome!

Then we have the Trout fishing this has been a little slow as well. We have not done a whole lot of fishing for just Trout. Most of the fish that we have caught have been when we were fishing for the Snook or Red fish. But once the bait moves further into the bay the Trout fishing should pick up. Last week we had a Trout that was pushing 7 lbs it was a great fish about 28 inches.

Then I will go to the Snook fishing. This has been great if we have had any other trouble catching fish we have made up for it with the Snook fishing. It has been going crazy, we have been able to catch big numbers in a short amount of time. Most of these fish we have been catching around the mouths of the rivers and the bays surrounding the rivers. One of the secrets that I can give you is to try to find water that is above 65 degrees the fish will bite better. One of the biggest things that has helped us catch a lot of fish is having a lot of bait so you can chum the fish and get them to bite. The Snook of this week was 33 inches. We have had a lot of fish that were around this size 26-30 inches which if you are looking for a Snook to bring back to the dock these fish are great to eat.

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