In short… the bite is on! The past 10 days or so have been nothing short of spectacular. Tarpon are here in great numbers and they are chewing. Fish up to 140lbs have been brought boat-side and most tarpon we’re hooking are 100lbs or better. The last few days have been a real early morning bite. We’ve left the dock at 6am and each of the last three days we’ve hooked at least 3 tarpon by 7:30am.
May 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay Fishing Charter Report
It’s tarpon season boys and girls and our first full week of tarpon charters has been a great success. To be completely honest, the first tarpon trip 2 weeks ago was a dud but since then, we’ve whacked ‘em. Yesterday was the latest installment of the “Silver King Air Show” as we put 8 fish in the air and landed 4 nice sized tarpon. Zenon Konopka (former Tampa Bay Lightning star and current New York Islander) and his buddy Pat Smith did a great job yesterday. After a few hookups and lost fish, the quickly figured out how to land them and boated 4 out of the last 6 fish they hooked.
Will Parker (pictured), who had fished with me a week ago with his dad and brother, brought Jen Baker with him on a tarpon trip earlier this week. Jen went redfish fishing with Will and I 2 years ago and we wore the redfish out. This time though, she hooked in to a couple of tarpon upwards of 100lbs. Will hooked into 4 fish and landed 1 nice one.
Other trips this week have produced 4-6 tarpon each and the fish have ranged from 60lbs all the way up to the 140lb range. We’ve put a few fish in the air that were well over the 150lb range but have yet to coax one of those all the way to the boat.
(***Technical note: To put a tarpon “in the air” means hooking a tarpon and fighting it. Tarpon almost always leap into the air once hooked and many time they leap several times during the fight).
The tarpon bite should be good from now through the end of July. So if you’ve ever wanted to catch a big “Silver King” (a.k.a tarpon) you’d better hurry to get one this year.
Best of the rest:
There are some really nice sized redfish around. They’ve been anywhere from 6-15lbs. There aren’t huge numbers of them but we’re getting big ones in the St. Petersburg area. Speckled sea trout remain strong on the grass flats and spanish mackerel are just about everywhere. While tarpon fishing we’re also getting some really fun by-catch. We’ve caught grouper, snapper, spanish mackerel, sharks and cobia.
April 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Fishing Charter Report – Tampa Bay, Tarpon Springs and New Port Richey
I’m so thankful that Spring is in full swing with Summer just around the corner. This is one of my favorite times of year. Mild weather and many different species of fish to chase makes for some really fun days around the Tampa Bay area.
Right now the trout fishing is juts about as good as it gets. Trout are everywhere in the New Port Richey and Tarpon Springs area. Over the last couple of days, we’ve caught trout in the 18-24″ range at just about every spot we’ve stopped at. Trout are a lot of fun to catch as they can make some pretty explosive hits on our baits as they chase them to the surface. They put up a real nice fight when they are over 20″ long and they taste really good on the grill.
April 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
New Port Richey Fishing Charter Report
What an awesome week we’ve had here in the New Port Richey area! Beautiful weather, great fishing and really good company on the boat. One of my clients, Eric, was supposed to have a female companion on this trip but plans didn’t work out for her to come so he and I ventured out on our own. Man did she miss out! We didn’t wear the fish out as far as numbers go but Eric did get into some really nice redfish and trout. Including a monster! The fish measured just over 39″ long and weighed just over 22lbs. It was a real “pig”. Eric also got into some 25-30″ reds and some trout in the 18-23″ range. It was a great day and though we didn’t catch 100 fish, he was treated to some real bruisers. [Read more...]
April 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Fishing Report – New Port Richey – Redemption and New Beginnings
I had two charters today, as I often do in the Springtime, and my first trip was a story of great hopes put off to another day. The first attempt at a great fishing trip was in January and unfortunately, the 32 degree temps and the 20knt winds forced us to push the charter off to another day.
So Terry, and his family came back for some fishing today and they were met with much better conditions which led to some really good fishing. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos (maybe they’ll hook me up) but the trout bite was really good in the New Port Richey area. We go t fish from 16-22″ and they cooperated pretty well for a solid hour. We tried to get into some of the recent good mackerel bite but the tide didn’t cooperate much. However, we got 3 or 4 nice macks and a nice sized atlantic sharpnose shark.
April 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Fishing report – Tarpon Springs and New Port Richey – What a Wild Week
What a wild last 7 days we’ve had here fishing in the Tarpon Springs and New Port Richey areas. We’ve had absolutely gorgeous days and a few really rainy days. The rain has definitely changed things. The bait has moved, the fish have moved and we’ve had to change our habits to get on both. But thankfully, with a little work, the fishing has been really good.
