Fun in the sun!
Only in Tampa... Warm January and hot fishing! Nice red!

1-23-2008 - Fish and Fog

I decided to fish St. Joseph Sound this morning just because I had a few ideas that I wanted to try. I got a late start however because my trailer lights weren't working. I tried for an hour to get them to work and when sun up came, I just rolled out with them working as best I could get them to.

 

The scene at the boat ramp was not indicative of what was to come once I ventured a little ways from shore. It was foggy. Not terrible but still a little unnerving as I ran 9 miles South of the ramp. Also, just for a heads up, don't trust your GPS maps too much in the fog. Mine was about 500 yards off on an island and I came within 25 yards of planting my boat into the island's North shore before I saw it. My GPS said I was 500+ yards east of the island.

 

Once I reached my first stretch of shoreline, it didn't take long to realize that that this was going to be a great "catching" day. In the first ten minutes I saw two schools of redfish and several fish tailing. It wasn't 5 minutes after the visual confirmations of fish that the situation turned into physical catching of fish. I caught 5 reds in the first 20 minutes using my trusty Exude RT Slug on a weightless Mustad Powerlock hook. Only this time I was trying out a new color that I picked up at Fisherman's World in Tarpon Springs. The new (to me) color is called Croaker Shad. It's kind of a tan color with silver and green flash in it. I picked it up because I thought it looked like a good imitation of several kinds of baitfish that are abundant in the winter months here. The redfish seemed to agree with my logic.

 

After I caught several fish, including 3 trout over 20", I decided that I just had to get some of these aggressive fish to hit a top water plug. On the third cast the water exploded underneath my plug.  Unfortunately the fish missed all 6 hooks hanging from the bottom of my lure. In fact, the next 10 strikes I got on top water all came up blank. Then I finally hit pay dirt with a nice 24" red on my Mirr-O-Lure He-Dog plug. The bite lasted until well into the incoming tide and then it shut off around 10:30am. 

 

Once the bite shut down the fog really set in. I had thought that the sun would burn it off but I was wrong. By noon I couldn't see more than 30 yards.  I decided to head home instead waiting to see if the fog would burn off. Being on the water in the fog is kind of eerie because you lose your sense of direction and you can hear other boats whizzing by you but you can't see them or the direction they are heading. I just took my time and kept my head on a swivel and made it home in about 45 minute.

 

It wasn't a bad day at all. I could have done without the fog but the bite today made it worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

1-10-2008 - Full Recovery

 

Well, we've had a few days of warm weather since our severe cold front that killed a lot of fish. The fishing has been getting better by the day and today proved that we're back to normal, or even better. A buddy of mine called me while I was on the way to the ramp and said that his clients caught over 100 trout this morning before 10am and that the smallest one was 20"! That's a stellar morning in anybody's book. Hearing that got me fired up because it made me think that my redfish may be back on some of my go to spots.

 

I put the boat in in New Port Richey and ran to the first spot. The tide was pretty low but rushing in quickly because of the Southerly wind we had. As I inched my way up on the flat I could see mullet jumping. That was a good sign because a few days ago the mullet had disappeared along with the redfish. A few minutes later I saw the first small pod of over slot redfish. Game on!

 

I worked that spot and a few others for a little over three hours and saw well over 500 redfish ranging from 20" to 30+". I didn't catch a ton of fish, because I was working the flats over pretty fast and blowing out a lot of fish, but I did manage 6 redfish and one trout. The smallest red was 22" and the largest was 30". All were caught on Mangrove Red colored Exude RT Slugs fished on weightless weedless hooks.

 

I know we have some more cold fronts coming but none look to be as severe as the one we had last week so I remain hopeful that these fish will stick around for a while.

 

 

 

 

1-8-2008 - Recovering From a Cold Snap

 

John was in town again visiting with his son Gabe and they wanted to do some fishing. As you know we've had a very mild Winter this year and the fishing has been great. That was until this past week's cold snap. The air temps dropped below freezing and the water temps dropped to about 50 degrees. That was a few days ago and now we've had a few days of near 80 degree weather and I was thinking that these fish would be hungry coming out of the cold front we'd just had.

 

Well, a couple of days ago the flats were devoid of life. No bait, no mullet, no fish to be seen anywhere. Today however, we saw fish but they just weren't that hungry. I don't know if it was high pressure or the fact that all the fish that survived the cold snap had plenty to eat because of all of the dead baitfish laying at the bottom of the sea. Either way... the fish didn't seem to hungry.

 

We covered a great deal of water and saw many fish but all we managed were 4 redfish and 3 really tiny trout. The reds came on frozen pinfish fished under a cork and the trout came on frozen pinfish fished on a jig head.

 

Hopefully we'll get a break from cold fronts for a few days. Our fish could stand the break. Once the free buffet of frost bitten, dead, baitfish dries up and the fish begin to feel comfortable with the water temps again, the bite should take off. Only time will tell.

 

Either way, I had a great time hanging out with Jon and Gabe again. When we hook up again next, the snook should be heading towards the beach and the reds should be in huge schools.

 

 

 

 

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