Tampa bay waters are not to rough!
Capt. TJ Stewart
May 15, 2008
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Wrap your mind around this visual… a 100 lb to 150 lb fish being chased by a shark that is over 8 ft long. For us, it is not just a visual in our mind. It is a real situation that we've been dealing with frequently the past few weeks. Unfortunately, it's not just me dealing with it. Other captains are having the same trouble. This is not something that I want to be seeing happening, so hopefully as more tarpon show up, the sharks will spread out. Right now, most of the fish are still in Tampa Bay, but over the next few weeks, the fish will start moving around. Overall, fishing in the Bay has been pretty good. We did have some weak tides in the morning last week, which made us have to work a little harder to catch some of the fish; but before the day was up, we found a good bite.
The tarpon bite has been good lately! We had some big fish last week, but toward the end of the week, the weather got a little too rough for us. We did manage to sneak in one tarpon trip in Boca Grande, Fl. last week. We hooked a number of fish; however, we didn't get any of them back to the boat. This weekend is the beginning of the Professional Tarpon Tournament Series in Boca Grande, Fl. that I participate in each year. Hopefully, I'll have better news about tarpon fishing for you next week.
Snook are out of season, but snook fishing has been awesome. They don't have as much pressure on them so they are bite better. When they go out of season, the big ones start showing up. We have had a lot of fun catching and releasing these great fish.
The redfish bite has been a bit unpredictable lately. We had a few days last week where we couldn't keep the redfish off the line, then others where we had to work a little for the bite. However, we did manage to find some fish each trip. Many of the redfish we caught last week were over size, being around 32 inches to 34 inches long. Catching this size fish on light tackle is an awesome fight.
Trout fishing has managed to stay at the top of its game. We haven't had any trouble finding a few of these great fish to take home each trip. The trout of the week is a fish that we caught during a fishing tournament. This great trout was 22 ¾ inches long, and it was one of the wining fish of our catch. We won the tournament with a 33 inch redfish, a 28 ½ inch snook, and the big trout. It wasn't a huge slam, but it was big enough to take 1st place in the tournament. Please visit www.castawaychartersinc.com and book your trip today!
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