Tampa Bay Fishing Report

Capt. TJ Stewart
May 9, 2006
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report

There Back!

Well let’s see how do we start this report out? It was a great week for the most part the wind was not too bad. It is starting to warm up pretty good. At the start of the week it was a little chilly in the morning but not too cold to catch fish.

Well let’s start this with the Snook fishing .At the start of the week we had a lot of fun with the Snook bite. Even though these fish are out of season they are still fun to catch. Some of the fish in different areas were tough to get to bite and then others would bite as soon as the bait hit the water. We had a lot of nice fish this past week but the Snook of the week was a 34 inch fish.

We have Trout. We managed to catch a number of these. I guess with all the bait that has moved into the bay the Trout have shown up. I was beginning to wonder if the red tide had wiped out the Trout but we have managed to catch a pretty good number of fish when we found them.

Red fish was the best Red fishing we have so far this year! To say no more it was going off and we had a lot of really great fish. I guess the water temp has gone up and it has made the fish turn on a little better. We managed to catch a bunch of bait which was a big help to get the fish feeding and keep them in a frenzy. These fish have been really tough to catch lately so it was a lot of fun, we had some great fish. We had fish that were over 30 inches. Well you might get to see a little bit of the fish on the Hooked On Fishing tv show with Captain Bill Miller. We did a show on Friday. I do not know the date that the show is going to play but I will try to let you know.

Then to end the week we did so with a bang. Tarpon that’s right like the Red fish I think they were waiting for it to warm up. But to say no more I think they have finally shown up pretty good. but I can say I do have a story for you. Well we started the morning out early caught bait then went to fishing. We anchored up and about ten minutes later we saw a school of Tarpon rolling we moved and within two minutes we had a fish on, forty-five minutes later we landed it. Then back to fishing on the way back to were we anchored we found another big school of fish. Put baits in and one minute later we had another fish on, this one was a little bigger 150 lbs. This is when it gets good almost two hrs later after an unbelievable fight we thought it was time to boat this fish we had the Tarpon up to the boat when a 10 ft long what seemed like a Bull Shark came up and tried to take this great fish. To say no more I have never seen a Shark come up and try to take a fish like that but. as you can see in the picture the teeth marks are there. It was crazy but we managed to boat the fish and let him see another day!

More Fishing Reports:

• All Reports by Capt. TJ Stewart
• Tampa Bay Fishing Reports
• West Florida (Englewood to Cedar Key) Reports
• Florida Fishing Reports
• Browse All Fishing Reports