Sunday, Fishy Sunday, In St.Pete
Capt. Sean Hagen
February 26, 2008
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
It's Sunday morning we got moving water,good weather,and excellent company aboard the Shady Shamrock.
Fishing with me are Mr.Robby Shamblin and Mr.Jim Brandt both of whom are from Tampa. The suns been up for an hour ,so we waste no time heading to the Skyway Bridge. When we arrive the baits thicker than grits an a toss of the net blacks-out both livewells. Now that we have plenty white bait ,I point the bow south and in short a time we are power polling down in a deep cut just north of Terra Ceia.
We begin fishing the low tide on the outgoing. Freelining medium size pilchards using 20 & 25 lb. fluorocarbon leader on 1/0 circle hook.
Immediately we manage to boat a flounder followed by several spanish and large lady fish.After chumming up the pass a bit with live bait Mr. Robby tricks a linesider into bitting his hook.Unfortunately that was it for the snook. So we decide to try another nearby cut that bottle necks in and for this reason the water moves a tad faster. This spot always holds flounder in the winter time, so we added splitshot to our lines and a pilchard to the hook. Drift fishing the small cut letting our lines drag the sandy shell bottom we boat seven flounder in one pass, Three of which are keepers.
Before leaving we ran into Mr.Joe James of Terra Ceia Towers who reported catching pompano in Big Miguel pass.Which is always good to know. Thinking we would like catch some grouper we head back to the Skyway. The tides now switched from outgoing to incoming as we make our way to the dolphins (the bumpers around the middle span of the bridge)Outfitted with tarpon size rods & reels and rigged with 50-60 lb. leader, 5/0 hooks with 1/2 oz. of lead we flip pinfish up tight against the dolphins open the bail and set the hook. It didn't take long to rodeo-up 5 gag grouper. The problem was that the 2 biggest were still short of being legal by an inch and that meant no grouper for dinner. My apologies to Mr. Jim's parents for that. They were visiting from out of town and he wanted treat them to a fresh grouper dinner.
Before leaving we eye-balled a ton of mangrove snapper. we even caught a few along with some grunts,but despite their numbers they still had a lot of growing up to do. That's not to say there isn't any big ones down there. The dilemma lies in trying to get your bait down to the big ones before the little guys pick you clean.
I have two more spots I want to try before we call it a day .The first is the lower bridge on the north end.Where we catch a small grouper and redfish on pilchards and a nice sheepshead on a shrimp.Not what I was hoping for, but better than nothing.
Finally, I thought we would complete the day with some nice trout. Traditionally Tierra Verda flats have always been my hot spot for big trout. However the red tide from a a few years back left it a saltwater ghost town. But guess what "their baaaaaack"! Anyway we drift the flats only using the trolling motor on occasion to keep coarse. Working popping corks and live shrimp we didn't catch a fish. Which is kinda weird, but as soon as we switched to pilchards it was game on. We ended up with some nice trout no monsters, but one over twenty and another one not far off. Not too bad a Sunday for fishing in between winter time fronts during the end of February. I'll get back with you, till then have quality day on the water.
Capt. Sean Hagen of Shamrock Inshore Charters
Tampa Bay Fishing Forecast:
With the mild winter we had this year and all the bait in the bay as long as we do'nt get hit with a hard case of red tide .We may be looking at a record year of fishing hear in Tampa Bay.
Target Species:
flounder trout grouper
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