Fishing Reports by Capt. Stewart Ames

Kingfish Arriving Now - The first of fall's cool fronts has just worked it's way through the Tampa Bay Area. With scattered kingfish a few miles off the beach last week, the near shore bite for these speedy gamefish should be on once waters calm down and clear up over th more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

October Offers a Mixed Bag of Opportunties - Redfish have been the primary target of most Tampa Fishing Charters over the last month. Not only have these fish been fairly abundant, many over-slot fish have been around as well. These fish responded to a wide range of baits and, as always, when more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

Big Redfish on the Prowl - The variety of species that are caught inshore in the August / September time frame can be quite limited. In a nutshell, redfish dominate the scene, with a very occasional decent snook showing up now and then. With that said, the last few charters more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

Snook Cooling Off, Redfish still Eating - The last two weeks of July signaled the departure of many snook from our local beaches. With spawning activity over, these fish have spread back out….some larger fish probably moving a little bit offshore while many other fish have taken up reside more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

Snook and Redfish - Redfish, snook and trout…all closed to harvest thru May, 2020. Great! A full year for fish to grow in a protected environment. Inshore fishing is a lot more about the sport and less about the harvest anyway, so business remains largely unaffected. W more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

Reds Big, Snook Fishing about to heat up - The beauty of fishing is that nothing is ever for sure. It's May, water temps are 80 degrees and snook are all over the beach. Right? That is the expectation this time of year however snook fishing over the last week has not been on fire. It appear more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

Big Trout, Snook and Redfish all available - March finished strong with quality fish being caught for all three major species. Big trout were readily available for the last two weeks of March and seemed to be keyed into eating larger whitebait. Baits that seemed almost too big were best. Pati more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

Small Redfish Abundant / Early Snook Make an Appearance - Seatrout fishing in February remained pretty strong although fishing this winter has, overall, been a bit slower than previous years. That said, the last few years have been ridiculously good. So it may be well timed that the harvest of trout over 20 more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

Big Trout and Redfish are Best Bet - January delivered what is generally expected. As our coldest month of the year, fronts dependably arrived and squashed the fishing each time. One stretch produced 8 straight nights of temperatues into the forties. On the bright side, warming trends more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay

Trout Action Strong / Redfish scattered - Is it January or September? Last week, water temperatures reached 71 degrees in St Joseph's Sound. The large seatrout got confused and seemed to move off of their more predictable locations. Large seatrout fishing is generally an easy proposition more...
Capt. Stewart Ames - Tampa Bay