TAMPA BAY FISHING MAKE OR BREAK!
Capt. TJ Stewart
November 27, 2009
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
What a great week! The weather was nice and the fishing was awesome. Of course we had a couple of days where we had to dodge the wind, but it didn't stop us from enjoying the great bite.
Grouper fishing in the Bay has been hot! It seems like when fishing for other species is a bit slow; grouper fishing is at its best. Grouper fishing in the Bay is good when the tide is slow. When it comes to grouper fishing, the slower the tide, the better because the bait has an easier time getting down to the bottom. When the tide is fast moving, you have to use a weight on your line to get the bait down to the bottom. I think that the fish can see the weight and shy away from it, therefore, it slows the bite down. We've been most successful at grouper fishing while free lining bait on or around structure on slack tides.
Unlike grouper fishing, slow moving tides on the flats make it tough to catch snook and redfish. There are a lot of really low tides this time of year that cause the fish to push off the flats and become more concentrated in holes. This is a good thing. When you get a lot of fish in one hole, you will get them to bite even if the tide isn't moving. Many times they will even fight over the bait. You can't beat that!
This is the time of year that we encounter mid to high tides, which can make fishing tough. It is beneficial to spend a lot of time on the water to figure out what the fish are doing. When the tides are mid to high, the fish will swim to really shallow water and a lot of times up in mangroves. When the fish move to shallow water it makes catching them a challenge. You have to figure out where the fish are going to move before they actually do, get your boat in place, and wait for them to get there in order to catch them.
Water temperature can make or break fishing. Yes, it is hard to believe that one degree to two degrees in the water temperature can make that much of a difference, but it certainly can. That is why we do a lot of fishing in the rivers this time of year. The darker water, much like shallow water, tends to heat up faster so many fish spend the winter there. Please visit www.castawaychartersinc.com and book your fishing trip today!
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