Tampa Bay fishing report
Nice Tampa redfish
Todays trip was scheduled to be 2 anglers for the Outback Steakhouse annual fishing event. At the dock I was one of the last boats in at Billy’s Stone Crab restaurant on the water to pick up my clients for out day of fishing since bait was a little on the tough side. Rest assured, I got plenty of bait. My clients had not shown up to fish and the only one left at the dock was an angler with a recent severe knee injury who had elected to not fish due to not wanting to have others fishing affected by him not being mobile in the boat. With no clients to fish for the day and this lone angler at the dock who was conteplating going back and watching TV for the day we tied off the boat got him aboard and loaded up with water and sodas and took off to the fishing grounds. I assured him we could get onto fish without worry of having to sit in one spot on the boat. What a day! We caught plenty of spanish mackerel in the first spot free lining live bait in the current off a local Tampa Bay grass flat. The next stop was for redfish. We waited until a higher tide phase and moved in slowly and I recognized a friend fishing the same area. We eased in on the push pole silently and anchored. The fish didn’t eat immediately but I knew patience would be key. After another move of the boat it was ON! We were in to constant redfish. Cast after cast there was not a bait that didn’t get eaten by a big top of the slot Tampa Bay redfish!
After wearing my angler out on those reds we decided that since he’d never caught a snook we would persue that next. We took a 5 minute ride to a shoreline where I spotted fish but also spotted a dolphin working mullet schools and scaring snook out of the area. We moved a couple hundred yards away and I found more fish. I casted a large baitfish to the snook and it was inhaled within 10 seconds. My angler fought him while a pulled the anchor and we gave chase using the trolling motor. Usually I don’t use the trolling motor to chase fish but we needed to keep this fish off the front of the boat due to my anglers needing to stay off his knee while fishing. We boated a beautiful 31 inch Tampa Bay snook, high fived and released it to fight again!
After his first snook I asked if he’d like to go after a seatrout to complete his first inshore slam. He agreed that would be a good idea and we moved the boat about 200ft. to a grassy drop off and put a bait under a popping cork. After about five minutes we completed our slam with a nice Tampa Bay seatrout.
This was a great day of Tampa Bay fishing and the best part was my client was reeling in all of his fish without ever getting off the console seat of my boat!
Tight lines!
Capt. Chris