This past week was a lot of fun. I had a new baby girl! Well, my wife actually delivered her but was there to hold my wife’s hand Plus, we jumped over 15 tarpon, landed some cobia, hooked some sharks, put several sea trout in the cooler and caught more mackerel than myself or any of my clients could count! What and awesome week!

Tampa Bay fishing has been great! Tarpon have again stolen the show. If you have a little patience, there’s nothing from stopping you from catching a fish of a lifetime right now. We’re hooking between 3 and 7 tarpon per trip with many being in the low 100lb range. Inbetween tarpon bites we’re also getting a good mackerel bite, some grouper, a few snapper and also a few cobia.

We’re fishing the Sunshine Skyway bridge in St. Petersburg for the most part right now but there are also some tarpon spread out along several area beaches. Threadfin herring has been the ticket to the best bite and we’ve been starting the charters early in the morning to try to beat the heat and to also beat the afternoon thunderstorms.

If you ever wanted to hook a “silver king” now is the time. The fish will be here until at least early October but the sooner the better as migratory fish will begin leaving the area in a month or so while resident fish will move up into the bay.

Call 813-300-2147 to book your Tampa Bay tarpon fishing charter today!

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I must confess that I have been slacking when it comes to posting fishing reports. I hope you guys will forgive me. It’s just been that I’ve been so busy fishing that I haven’t really had the time or the energy. But, the fishing has been so good that it deserves a report so here ya go!

Tarpon: What can I say? It’s tarpon time! They’re on the beaches, in the passes and at the bridges. And we’ll be catching them all the way through September. The hot bait at the bridges has been pass crabs and on the beaches they’ve been doing back flips over scaled sardines. The beach as been really fun because you can see the fish, cast to them and then watch them crush your bait.

Check out this video of some of this weeks tarpon catches!

Spanish Mackerel: The spanish mackerel bite has been really good and we’ve been getting some real bruisers. Good moving water and live sardines have been the ticket. They’re pretty good table fair and you can keep a whole bunch of them so if you are looking to fill a cooler this is your best bet.

Speckled Trout: Surprisingly, we’ve been catching a ton of 20″+ fish. Usually in the summer time the fish tend to be a bit smaller than they are during the rest of the year but this year, we’ve been whacking some really nice sized fish. Fishing low tide in pot holes and deep cuts has been the ticket.

Redfish: The redfish bite in the summer time is typically slow here and this year is par for the course. It’s no problem finding tons of them but getting them to eat is a challenge. We can still target them if you’d like but you’ll be passing up the fish that are biting the best for fish that will test your patience. Trust me, it’s not that I don’t want to target them, they’re my favorite fish to target, it’ll just take a lot of patience if redfish is what you want right now.

Snook: We caught a good deal of snook in the spring but have not been targeting them this summer very much. There are too many other fun fish to catch that have been more willing to cooperate to spend much time on them. We can target them but see the redfish report for what you can expect.

Sharks: We’ve got sharks coming out of our ears. If you want to catch a monster, toothy critter, then just let me know. We can get anything from 3′ blacktips to 200lb+ bulls without much trouble.

Grouper: We’re not targeting them per say, but we’ve put 3 grouper over 27″ in the boat in the past week while fishing for other fish. Plus untold numbers of smaller grouper. If targeted, we should do pretty well with them.

Again, to reiterate…. WE HAVE NO OIL HERE! Come fishing! Our beaches are clean and the fishing is great!

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All winter long I dreamed of these days. It seemed as if they would never come again! But they are finally here!!! It’s tarpon season and sore arms, worn out backs, buckets of sweat and the biggest smiles you have ever seen are plastered on worn out faces as we are now in the midst of some stellar tarpon fishing action in Tampa Bay. Tarpon have invaded Tampa Bay and if you pick your days right, you can have a trip on a lifetime. Make sure to check my “Best Tapon Dates of 2010″ to know which day you should book for your best chances at catching a fish of a lifetime.

Right now we’re in the middle of a “hill tide” week and the crabs are flushing and the tarpon are eating them up. There are some real bruisers around right now. Yesterday we had one fish that was well over 200lbs and took 2 men 2.5 hours to boat. We’ve also been getting several fish in the 100-135lb range and we can whip those in under 45 minutes. I’ve been hearing several reports of people getting into fish constantly in the 125-150lb range so if you want to hook a monster, they’re here for you.

The inshore bute has been pretty good as well as bait is plentiful and the redfish, trout and snook have been eating them up. Tarpon springs has been giving us a good snook and trout bite and the lower half of Tampa Bay has been producing good numbers of keeper trout and nice sized snook. This is one of the best times of year for catching just about everything. We’ve also caught a few cobia, several spanich mackerel, some jack crevelle and sharks.

If you’re concerned about the oil spill, don’t!. It’s hundreds of miles away from us and hasn’t been moving our way. Our water and beaches are beautiful and the fishing is awesome right now. Book your trip today!

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What an awesome last couple of weeks it’s been! The weather has been wonderful and the fish have been cooperating. I’ve run charters out of Tampa Bay, Tarpon Springs and St. Petersburg over the last couple of weeks and the fishing has been great.

In St. Peterburg, the hot bite for the past couple of weeks has been HUGE black drum. They’ve been hanging around in a couple of places from the beach to areas around the Sunshine Skyway bridge. Fish from 20-65lbs have been the norm and they’ve readily eaten life and dead shrimp fished on jig heads as well as gulp shrimp. There are also several schools od large redfish around and if you hit them on the right tide, good action can be had.

Tampa Bay has produced some nice catches of mid slot redfish while the trout bite has changed from the smaller trout we were catching when it was cold to really big trout now that the weather has warmed a bit. We’ve been getting good numbers of upper and over slot trout on shrimp in 2-4 feet of water while fishing potholes.

Tarpon Springs fishing is on fire right now. I mean just about everything is available. The big ticket has been the 40-100 fish catches of super sized trout. The key has been finding sardines to fish with. They’ll eat shrimp here and there but they have absolutely been doing back flips over sardines free lined during any kind of moving tide. Fish from 18-26″ are being caught all day long. Redfish, baby tarpon (7-15lbs), mackerel and even some snook are also available to catch right now.

Big tarpon season is about a month away and if you’re wanting to get in on the action, don’t wait. Book you trip now as people are calling and asking about the best dates (certain dates have much better tides than others) right now and their booking them. If you want to hook a “silver king”, you’re best bet is to call and discuss dates with me as soon as you can.

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Well, what do you say to a client when they are disappointed that the fish are too big to keep? I guess you just keep patting them on the back and telling them that you’re sorry that the fish are too big. You see, here in Florida, we have a slot size limit on speckled sea trout. Fish much been between 15″ and 20″ for the majority of your limit and you can only keep on e fish per person over the slot size limit. Today, like most recent trips, the hard pert is not putting fish in the boat, it’s putting fish in the “box”. This is the time of year where we get big trout. Really big trout. Today we struggled to find fish small enough to fit the slot size. Many of the fish were over slot.

Tarpon Springs and Clearwater are both famous for producing large trout this time of year. And now that the water is warming up, they are chewing the bottom out of the boat on an incoming tide. Shimp, pinfish and sradines (yes I said sardines… they’re around if you know where to look) fished under a popping cork are producing great numbers of really large trout in the Tarpon Springs, St. Joseph Sound and Clearwater areas. Fishing charters in the Tarpon Springs and Clearwater areas have produced 50+ fish days while most fish have been big enough to make it hard to reach our 4 fish per day limit.

Fish grassy areas and rocky areas in 3-6 feet of water with good tidal flow during the incoming tide. The incoming tide has been absolutely essential to get on a good bite and the bite usually lasts about 2 hours. Once the trout bite slows, we’ve headed off in search of redfish and though we’ve found plenty to play with, it’s been a little tough to get them to bite. I think it’s due mostly to us spending the best part of the tide wearing out the trout. Also, it wouldn’t hurt for the water temps to come up another few degrees to really get them turned on. Good news is that 70+ degree temps are forecasted for the foreseeable future so the reds should be turning on soon.

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Finally! Some warm weather today for fishing charters in the Tarpon Springs area! And, the best news is that the weather is forecasted to be warm for the foreseeable future. Not to say that we won’t see any more cold fronts at all but the prospects of 70+ degree days for the next week or more is great news. Even better is that the fish love the warm weather too!

Today I had Joe and Pearl on the boat. They had scheduled a trip with me last year and ended up having to leave town early before we could get out and fish. This year though, we were able to go and it was a good thing that we were. The day started out slow as the tide didn’t move much until around 10:30am but once it did, we were able to pick up a few nice trout and a couple of really nice sheephead in the Palm Harbor area. Our next move was to the Spoil Island in St. Joseph sound so that we could hammer the trout on the incoming tide.   Fishermen were ready, as there were 5-7 boats on each island, but the fish weren’t. I only saw one trout landed while we were out there.

So, we headed to a spot that the trout seem to hang out at when they aren’t at the islands and sure enough, they were there sunning themselves in shallow water. There must have been at least 150 large trout on the flat and we were excited to see that they were willing to eat. We had about 2 dozen shrimp left at this point and we ended using them all on the nice 18-24″ trout.

Trout in the Clearwater, Palm Harbor and Tarpon Springs areas really like the incoming tide this time of year. So if trout is your main target, I would plan your trip around being able to hit your spots around the incoming tide. If you visit the spoil islands and the fish aren’t there, head to shallow water. They seem to wait for water temps to hit 60 degrees before they hit the spoil islands and today was no different. The water temp never got above 58 degrees and those big trout were happy to be sunning themselves in less than two feet of water.

Look for water temps to continue to rise this week but not as fast as it did today. The cloud cover we will have for the next 4 days will slow to water temperature rise but the fishing should still get better with each degree that the water temp ticks up. Redfish are around in good numbers but we didn’t have high enough water today to chase them. Tides next week should be favorable for being able to put more redfish in the boat.

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Well, it’s been a wild winter… weather wise. It’s been tough to get out on the water due to the economy and record breaking cold weather but I finally had the chance to get out the last few days and the prognosis is good. Really good.

I’ve got 5 charters coming up this week and I needed to get out and do some scouting for fish. Two days ago I went out with 20 year professional Tampa Bay area guide veteran and good friend of mine, Capt. Jim Lemke. We never even had to get the boat on plane before he put me on 5 different schools of 100+ redfish. We were out having fun and as such we only brought fly rods with us. The third cast of the day produced a hookup with a nice upper slot redfish but I lost him halfway through the fight. Capt. Jim poled his Maverick HPX boat around for a few more hours showing me some remarkable schools of redfish. We did way more looking than fishing but it was a lot of fun and great to see the redfish schooled up as tight as they were.

Yesterday, I went out with Capt. Greg DeVault of Americana Outdoors TV fame in search of lunker sea trout. We weren’t disappointed. During the low tide we hit cuts and drop-offs in the Tarpon Springs area with great success. Though we did very well on the first of the incoming tide, Capt. Greg and I both knew the bite would be better on the last of the outgoing tide but we’ll have to prove that later this week as the tides become more ideal. Trout in the 17-22″ range all took a liking to the new Mirr-O-Lure offering in soft plastics. The bait is called the Lil’ John. For years, Capt. Greg has been biting the end off of Exude Darts and rigging them with Slayer Inc. jig heads. Now, Mirr-O-Lure has taken his advice and created a bait similar to the Dart but cut one and a half inches off the nose and made the bait flat on that end to fit a jog head more comfortably. One thing I have noticed fishing Mirr-O-Lure new baits is that they are soft but extremely tough. We caught about 20 fish yesterday and Capt. Greg and I only used one bait each all day. That’s awesome if you ask me as most soft plastics seem to only survive one or two fish before having to change baits.

The weather is on a warming trend. That’s good news as we had the coldest January since 1978 here in the Tampa Bay area. The snook have taking a beating because of the frigid temps but the redfish and trout are stronger and hungrier than ever.

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The weather man says that fall weather is coming tomorrow. He said the same thing two weeks ago. I want to believe him this time but it’s hard to do considering the excessive heat we’ve had to deal with this past week. However, this time it looks like his prediction is for real. So, I’m excited. Luckily, although the typical fall fishing hasn’t arrived yet, typical summer fishing has been great. Spanish mackerel, bluefish, bonita, sharks, trout and a few nice snook have been willing participants every day. I just can’t wait for cooler weather so that the redfish will begin schooling up in great numbers again.

This past week we had catch numbers in the 50+ range of mackerel, trout and even some awesome upper slot snook. Even though the water temps haven’t dropped yet from the summer heat, the snook’s internal clocks are telling them to start heading for the creeks. And that’s exactly where we’ve found them. Trout on are the grass flats in 4-8 feet of water and though they are typically smaller while water temps are still warm, we’re getting plenty of keepers for dinner. The mackerel have been veracious and all have been keeper size near the area passes.

This weekend’s cooler weather, should the weather man be right, could be just what the doctor ordered to kick off another great fall redfish bite. Every Fall, with the cooler weather, redfish group up in hordes. It is tremendous fun finding groups of fish in the hundreds that are turned on by the higher oxygen levels that cooler water temps bring. Prowling the grass flats, they seek and destroy any editable nugget they can find and when they run into us, we wreck ‘em. The Tarpon Springs and New Port Richey areas really come alive in the fall with redfish. Areas with shallow turtle grass flats with patchy bottom, oyster bars and submerged limestone rubble mixed in are places where these newly schooling fish will gather. The crystal clear water that the cooler water temps bring help us find the fish as we can often see them rolling on their sides, flashing their signature copper sides, from a distance. We’ll approach the fish slowly and quietly so not to disturb them and present them with scaled sardines which they have a hard time refusing.

High temps in the upper 70’s are predicted for next week! It should be a blast. Bring a light jacket for the morning run out and then enjoy Florida at it’s best in shorts and t-shirts by 10am. Nothing beats Fall fishing in the Tampa Bay area.

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Well, today is the first day of Fall. It may not mean much to you but I’m excited about it. Fall is my favorite time of year to catch my favorite type of fish. Redfish. These strong fighters are starting to school up and that means that we’ll have plenty of opportunities to have double digit days of over slot redfish.

This week the reds are already starting to show signs of getting into their fall patterns. They’re grouping up by the hundreds along St. Pete’s shallow grass flats and near river mouths in New Port Richey and Tarpon Springs. If you approach these fish stealthily enough, you’ll see that they are “happy” fish. “Happy” redfish are fish that are rolling and giving off a distinctive bronze flash as their scales reflect the sun. They do this because they are feeding. Redfish are designed to be natural bottom feeders an as such their mouths are close to the bottom of their head. So when they attack fleeing baitfish, crabs or shrimp, they often have to roll on their sides to position themselves to feed.

Such was the case this week when my clients and I were looking for a school of redfish. We looked around for a while and worried that he school had moved off but it wasn’t long before I could see the bronze mirrors flashing as us. The first bait that we tossed into the water was hit immediately and a healthy over slot 10lb redfish was soon posing for a picture.

As this Fall season progresses, the redfishing should just get better and better. Look for clean water on turtle grass flats in 2 feet of water or less and look for them flashing happily as they feed. As always, the wind will be a regular factor this fall so try to use it to your advantage. Approach the fish from up wind and make as little noise as you can. If you can keep the school “happy” by staying quiet and feeding them a steady stream of chummers (wounded live bait that you can throw out to get the fish turned on) you should be able to keep the school in one spot for 2 or more hours of a good bite.

Tight lines and leave some fish out there for me!

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I love fishing for redfish. They are tough fighters and quite often willing participants in our fishing adventures. However, summertime can be very frustrating when targeting them here on the Suncoast. They seem to vanish at the drop of a hat and when you do have a good bead on their location they often seem disinterested in our offerings. So, many times during the summer we’ll go “catching” instead of “fishing” on my charters; as long as my clients are so inclined. We’ll go after mackerel, trout, snapper, grouper and the like first and then after we’ve caught tons of those we’ll go try to get some redfish. Many times the redfish thing doesn’t work out because not only are they tough to get in the heat of summer but we’ll have spent the best part of the tide chasing after other fish.

Today was different. I could feel a light nip in the air as if Fall was giving us a preview of the weather to come soon. So I decided we’d go after reds first and only try to go “catching” if the redfish didn’t pan out. So, we left the dock at about 6:45 A.M. to go get bait. I had a couple of my regular clients on the boat, Ben and Phil and they were excited when I told them it was time to start going after reds again. Bait wasn’t as easy as it has been but it wasn’t to hard to get either and by 7:30am we headed off on our hunt for reds in September.

The tide was an hour into ripping out already and you could practically watch the water level dropping as the 15knt NE wind helped it leave. The first spot we tried is pretty shallow at high tide so when I got there and assessed the situation, I opted for leaving after 5 minutes instead of being stuck for 5 hours. So we headed South a few miles and hit a spot that has always produced well for me in the fall. I immediately started feeling good about the spot when I could see hundreds of mullet jumping from 500 yards away. This spot usually rocks when the tide is leaving and the mullet are home.

We slowly trolled towards the mullet schools and it wasn’t long before I started seeing reds mixed in. We anchored up, threw out some chummers and a few minutes later I heard the first sound of a redfish crushing a sardine. Game on! Baits hit the water and shortly after, lines were singing. We didn’t kill the fish today because the leaving tide chased us off the flat but we did get some great redfish and Ben and Phil were ready for them. They’ve had their fill of snapper, mackerel and tout from their last 3 summer charters and they were all smiles with the 6-9lb reds we got on today.

Fall is coming. You can feel it in the air. All those fish that have been turning their noses up at you during the heat of summer are about to go on the hunt and it’s your time to hammer them. Start looking for them in the shallows now. They are there. Look for mullet schools and work them slowly. Topwater plugs like the Top Dog by Mirr-O-Lure will produce early in the morning and then switch to weightless soft plastic stick baits later in the day. If you’re using natural baits, sardines are still king. They aggressively hit the freebies I threw out today so I know they’ll chase them down on your hook. Good luck and leave some out there for me!

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