I love redfish.
They are beautiful fish and a great fight on light tackle.
They are beautiful fish and a great fight on light tackle.
3-4-2008 - Jump on in... The Water's Getting Warm
We had a cold front early in the week and the water temps dropped drastically. Thankfully, the air temps are back up and so are the water temps. As of today the temps are flirting with 70 degrees in New Port Richey and Tarpon Springs. That has the bait showing up as well as everything that eats it. Redfish, trout, mackerel, and cobia were all caught on charters this week and I'm looking for more of the same this next week.
With water temperatures switching from 70 degrees to 52 degrees then back to 70 degrees, we've really had to stay on our game. The fish were on the move and we rarely fished the same spots twice throughout the course of the week. Shortly after the cold front we had two slow days but now were back to normal and the redfish were chewing nicely. Fish to 7lbs were caught on scaled sardines. Though the schools of fish haven't quite bunched up together like the week before we still found schools of fish today in groups of 30 to 60 fish.
Another thing that is working in our favor is that the wind has laid down in the last couple of days. It is also forecasted to be pretty calm this week. That makes finding fish easier and it also makes casting to the fish easier.
This past week was good but this next week should be great. Keep tabs on the site and look for a great fishing report next week.
3-21-2008 - Brown Bomber are Back!
John told me that he hadn't been fishing in 30 years, that Ralph was an avid angler, and that Joe and Jordan hadn't really done much fishing before. I knew they were in for some fun but even I didn't know how much. My recent fishing charters in Tarpon Springs have been doing real well on large trout and spanish mackerel with a few redfish thrown in for good measure. But today, the "Brown Bombers" crashed the party.
I picked up my party in Tarpon Springs at the Anclote boat ramps at 9am with 2 live wells full of greenbacks. After introductions we headed off to a flat in about 5 feet of water that had been producing some trout and tons of spanish mackerel. The mackerel have been really big and they've been putting up great fight, zinging drag and all.
It wasn't long before the first fish was boated. I think it took all of 20 seconds after the first bait hit the water for one of the guys to pull in a small trout. After that it was mackerel bite after mackerel bite. The only problem is the mackerel were hook shy. they kept slashing at the bait just behind the hook. So I think we landed only one fish for every 6 or 7 that we hooked but the action was pretty steady none the less.
Then all of a sudden John hooks a fishing that is just screaming drag off of the reel. I'm thinking this is an absolute monster mackerel but to my surprise, when the fish first showed itself, it didn't have that tell tale silver flash of a mackerel. Instead, it was brown. It was COBIA brown! Sweet! The first cobia of the year! At first I thought it was a fluke but about 30 minutes later John was wrestling with his second cobia. The one of the other guys had one on but it got away.
What a great day. Cobia are a great sign that the flats are coming alive. I saw bait flickering everywhere. As you travel from spot to spot, keep a keen eye out for those "brown bombers" on sorte missions accross the flats. Have either a live bait, pinfish or green back, at the ready when using live bait and it wouldn't hurt to always have a Berkley Powerbait Eel rigged on a jig head at all times. Especially when catching bait early in the mornings. Some of my most frequent visits from cobia are while I'm catching bait. Every time you catch bait you are chumming the waters around you with the bait that gets loose from your net so be on the ready for a cobia to show up.
3-18-2008 - It's Officially Spring!
With the wind blowing so much this week, the redfish bite has been a little off. But, the good news is that sea trout, spanish mackerel, and bluefish have really been making a great showing. Not just in number but in size as well. Tarpon Springs is starting to see bait flood the flats and that has turned the trout bite on and brought the mackerel back to the flats.
As I've mentioned in recent previous reports, the wind can make things difficult when fishing for redfish. We've had front after front come through and it seems to have pushed the redfish off of their usual shallow flats. If we get a few calm days in a row they should return and the bite should be on again.
Water temperatures hit 70 degrees this week on the flats and the snook have taken notice. I've seen snook near creek mouths and river mouths and even a few out by the islands. That bite is set to go off big time.
We had a few 40+ trout days this past week with some fish reaching 6.5 lbs. We caught the most fish on 1/8th oz. jigheads with either Gulp Shrimp or Exude Darts in light colors. The smaller fish were schooled up in deep troughs but the big fish all came from less than 2 feet of water.
One day this week I loaded the live well with huge greenbacks. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them since they were too big to use for redfish and trout and the snook weren't cooperating but then I decided to try a flats where bait had been pretty thick. I threw out a bunch of baits to chum the water and see if anybody was home. It wasn't long before the chummers were getting crushed by monster mackerel. We hooked way more than we landed because the toothy critters could cut through my 70lb leader with ease but when we got good hook sets we were treated to some very large mackerel. One of which was over 30 inches long (pictures coming soon).
So if you are fishing on a windy day and you can't find snook or redfish, try fishing some flats in 4-6 feet of water and see if you can get into some of that fast paced, line zinging, mackerel action.
3-12-2008 - When the Wind Laid Down the Bite Picked Up.
March always seems to be one of the windiest months of the year for the Tampa Bay Area. Fishing is a little more difficult when the wind blows. But, the good news is that when the wind lays down we can find fish and they are hungry. The Tarpon Springs area has some large schools of redfish roaming around and some super sized trout.
The large trout are coming from shallow water. We've been getting them up to 23" but a fellow angler today reported catching 20 trout over 20" today with the largest being 26". Smaller trout are in deep cuts through shallow flats and they can be caught by the dump truck load on Bass Assassin 4" shads or Exude Darts in dark colors. Rig them on a 1/8oz jig 
head and you are likely to catch one every other cast all day long.
The redfish have moved. If you think you know where they are you are probably wrong. The last couple of days following this latest cold front has brought southerly winds which has pushed greenbacks into the area. As a fellow guide quipped yesterday, "they got a taste of the greenbacks and they are following them." My charter yesterday caught their fill of trout by noon and wanted to boat some reds so we went looking... for 4 more hours and couldn't find them in their recent haunts. I have them again tomorrow so I went out today to look for the reds on my own. What a pleasant surprise today when I not only found the redfish I was looking for but I also found tons of large snook sticking their head out on the flats. I hooked a pig of a snook nearing 35" and lost him while I tried to land him by myself without a net. The water temperature topped 70 degrees and that spells springtime snook blitzing. Hopefully we won't get too many more cold fronts. If we don't, the snook bite should really go off.
Look for redfish to be moving around following the bait and trout to be just about everywhere you find bait as well. The big trout will be shallow in the afternoons on high tides and the reds will be in moving water along deeper shorelines which is where the baitfish tend to congregate this time of year. You might have to look real hard to see them as they might be in water up to 4 feet deep. Throw Bass Assassin shad style jerk baits or Exude Darts or RT Slugs in dark colors on jig heads or if you can find greenbacks you might really whack them.
3-3-2008 - Instant Hookup
I knew it was gonna' be a little windy for the fishing charter with Chris, Mike, and Jess in Tarpon Springs. I just didn't know how windy it was gonna' get. I was hoping that the wind would hold off long enough for us to get on the redfish bite that has been so good for so long. When we pulled up to the first spot I could see the fish busting baits on the point of an oyster bar. This is a good sign. It means that we've found fish and they were hungry. This had me excited and I quickly set the Power Pole to stop the boat from moving and hastily baited hooks and got them in the water.
It wasn't long after the first bait was in the water that Jess was hooked up with her first redfish ever. It put up a nice fight and even pulled a good bit of drag. Shortly after taking pictures of that fish Mike had a really nice trout on. It was such a nice trout that I assumed, during half the fight, that it was a redfish. Both fish ate greenbacks fished under a cork.
Shortly after that, the wind started to blow and when I say blow I mean howl. We chop on the water made it hard to see the fish when they were in the water and the only time we saw the two schools of redfish there, they were so close to the boat that they spooked. I decided to leave that flat in search of other fish hoping that we could find some hiding on the lee side of some islands that wouldn't be so spooky.
It was tough the rest of the day. The wind, more than anything, can really make finding fish hard. It puts a chop on the water, it can muddy the water up, and it can even hold a tide out and keep it from coming in. Luckily, at the last spot of the day we got into some more trout and finished the day strong with everybody catching fish.
Spring is coming and these cold fronts should be gone soon. With that you can bet on calmer weather and more consistent fishing. Not that it hasn't been pretty consistent now but each cold front brings high winds, temperature drops, and tougher fishing conditions for a day or two. I'll be glad when the fronts are gone.
Phone: 813.300.2147
Email: GoFishing@CaptainClay.com
Email: GoFishing@CaptainClay.com