 |
Tampa Bay - Saltwater
Capt. Matt Ercoli
April 16, 2007
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Hello everyone, I hope this spring has been treating you well. I know it has been a while since a fishing report; it’s just that I’m so busy this time of year it’s hard to find the time to get everything done. I try to focus most of my energy in making sure that I am prepared every day for maximizing my fish catching. The internet just has to take the back seat when I am on the water everyday. It rained yesterday and blew like crazy today, I needed the time off to recoup a little and work on things like this. Anyway the fishing has been very good to me these last few weeks, especially for shear numbers of fish. Snook and reds have really been biting well, I can't think of one day in the last month we have caught less than 30 snook and reds on any of my trips and several days we lost count at 60 plus on live bait. That’s pretty good action but expected for this time off year. Most of the snook are in the smaller class, 22 to 26 inches. I have been fishing some areas with larger fish, up to forty inches, it’s just that the action is not as fast in these areas and it is hard to leave the faster action of the small fish. The really nice thing is that snook and redfish have been mixed together in a lot of spots, which is great. Most reds are in the 17 to 25 inch class, so while we have some great catch and release snook fishing we are also getting lots of nice eating size reds for those of you who like some fish to eat? It makes my job easy when the fish are feeding together like that. Most of my fishing as of late has been in very shallow clear water, which really makes it fun, nothing like watching the fish swim over and swallow your bait underwater. My fly fisherman especially like it. We had one day last week where we had probably 40 snook and reds on the fly between two fly fishermen, in gin clear water, where we got to see nearly every fish take the fly. Flats’ fishing with a fly rod simply doesn’t get any better than that.
Offshore fishing is equally good for kingfish, tunny and Spanish mackerel. The kings are averaging in the 8 to 30 pound range; the tunny in the 8 to 15 pound range and mackerel are 3 to 5 pounds. Offshore fishing has been equally as fast as inshore, whether my guys are casting live bait or a fly. Most of my time has been spent on the flats, just because it’s what most of my fishermen have been interested in doing when I give them the choice. All in all its April, what do you expect, the fishing is excellent.
Tarpon fishing is right around the corner, I start switching over to mostly tarpon fishing May first. It’s my favorite time of year and we put lots of fish in the boat. During each charter year sometime it’s hard for me to get too excited, but honestly when it comes to tarpon it still gets my adrenaline pumping. Every time we get our bait setup perfectly in front of a large school of rolling tarpon, the anticipation of the strike, and the first few explosive leaps. I love it, definitely the most exciting thing I get to do day in and day out. Most of the fish will average in the 75 to 130 pound class and we will most likely boat some in the 200 pound class each season. I still have some peak tarpon days available so let me know if it’s something you might want to try. Last year we averaged 5 to 7 hookups per day and had some days over 15. Even on the slow days we managed 2 or 3. There have already been a few large schools sighted so they should be right on time. May through July is the very best time for tarpon in our area.
I hope you enjoyed my report, look forward to seeing some of you on the water.
Capt Matt
More Fishing Reports:
|
|
|
|
