Trout Season Back On
Capt. Fred Everson
January 5, 2009
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
Trout season is on again in Tampa Bay, starting today. The catch and release action in December would seem to indicate that it will be a banner year for trout; never have I seen so many fish over 20 inches. All my most recent trout were caught and released between Sand Key and Big Pass while fishing with a variety of artificials, but the last fish came on a freelined live shrimp.
The redfish bite has finally heated up. I was in my canoe last weekend on an extreme low tide early in the morning and I caught two redfish, a jack and a keeper sized snook. All of the fish hit plastic shrimp rigged on a jig head. I like to hook them just as I do live shrimp – cutting the fan off the tail with a pair of scissors and running the hook out the shrimp's back. This does two things; it minimizes line twists and improves casting distance. I like to fish the imitation shrimp over bare sand with a slow retrieve.
My other go-to winter bait is the plastic crab. I fished the flats between Simmons Park and Apollo Beach on Monday and hooked two redfish on the artificial crabs, but it took a while. The tide was extremely low at 10 o'clock in the morning, and I spent more than an hour hung up on a sand bar. When the fish didn't come to me, I finally got back on the poling platform and did some hunting. After about an hour, I finally began to see a few fish. I hooked a big red on the crab, but the hook pulled shortly thereafter. A few minutes later I hooked a 22 inch fish on the same crab, and that one went in the box.
The following day I fished the same flat with Tom White of Skipper's Smokehouse and we saw plenty of fish, but they showed no interest in anything we threw at them. It probably had something to do with the drop in temperature and rise in pressure after the passage of a weak cold front the previous evening.
For charter information visit the captain's website at Tampabayfishingguide.com, or phone him at 813 830 8890.
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