Inshore Fishing Report
Sheepshead are fired up right now with the murky waters, stirred up conditions and the barrage of fronts. It’s a good time to get out there for the sheepshead around the docks, piers, bridges, jetties and rock piles of the area. They are loving small pieces of shrimp, fiddler crabs, barnacles, and cut oysters. Minimal weights, smaller hooks, and lighter leaders are a good idea too. Typically around size 1 to one ot hooks are a good size with around 15-20lb floro and the lightest possible weight to keep the bait near the structures.
Trout action has also been going well around the area too, we are seeing them very active in shallower areas around the flats. At night, we are seeing a few around the bridge lights and dock lights. They are moving a bit slower though, so remember if your working lures to slow down. The mirror lure provoker is a great soft bait idea right now if you’re a soft plastics user, but also the live shrimp or even greenbacks if you can find them.
Flounder are biting well, but they are spawning so a majority move out to the near shore artificial reefs. However, those who are still around or those who came back are definitely ready to eat and are aggressive. They are stocking up for their longer journeys and are thus more apt to eat a bigger variety of baits too. Typically we see them on live shrimp or mud minnows, but even smaller pinfish work for big ones.
Redfish are biting well around the dock lines especially if you can find a dock line around an area adjacent to the grass flats, mangroves or oyster bars. They especially love areas that might be a little warmer than other surrounding areas. Look for that sun drenched, or wind protected shoreline, and if you can find both in conjunction with one another then typically that adds up to a great opportunity to catch plenty of more active fish.
Snook are biting, but you have to work to find them in the back country. They are definitely moving slow, and they are hiding out where they can find any reprieve from the cooling waters. They are mostly around the creeks, rivers, and bayous. However, in the upper and back bays you can find them too.
*REMEMBER, please help spread the word and knowledge on what to do if you hook or entangle a bird. NEVER CUT THE LINE, stay calm and reel in the bird and get all your line back and dehook them and release. Never leave any line in the water, if you accidentally hook a dock make sure to break the line off at the hook never cut your line. Seabirds in the area are more and more often showing up with line hanging off them and we are in danger of losing access to fishing areas due to this. While anytime a bird is in danger or having issues is concerning too, but a wave of support of closing areas to fishing due to negative bird interactions is extremely concerning to an already dwindling number of areas you can fish around Tampa Bay from a shoreline, dock, bridge or pier! Check out the NEW podcast we did with salt strong on this issue – https://www.saltstrong.com/articles/shutting-down-fishing-at-busy-pier/ **
NEarshore Fishing Report
Hogfish action still dominates the near shore report, but now that red grouper are re opened again you have a shot for some nice red grouper too. However, near shore this time of year we don’t see huge numbers of the red grouper. Generally, they get a bit more common as waters warm near shore and this time of year when waters are cooler we find them most commonly in the bigger keeper size out deeper offshore. So if you want to get a red grouper I would be fishing 100ft or more offshore while the hogfish are going well around 30-70ft of water. We typically have the hard choice of going deeper near shore on a ten hour to target the red grouper, big lanes, mangroves and give up on as many hogfish or stay shallower and get the hogfish with lanes and have a chance for some mangroves and maybe a red grouper or two. The first ten hour of the year was going to start deep and then work shallower, but committed to making it out deep and then the fishing didn’t cooperate well enough to work out. Hoping for some good weather windows coming up so we can get back after them near shore soon. The first ten hour of the year on the big boat did okay with some keeper red grouper, but the bite was tough and slow and we didn’t end up getting as much as we would like.
Lane snapper have been biting well and been seeing some really big average sized lane snapper too! Huge lane snapper that are big came up on our last few ten hours and even some of our deeper half day fishing trips. I would say they bite best on the shrimp, but we are getting them on the squid and even small pieces of threadfin.
Deeper near shore we are seeing a handful of mangrove snapper, but we definitely not getting a ton of them until we get deeper offshore. You have a chance to see a few of them on a 5 hour and a better chance on a 10 hour but really not until you get on a 12 hour or more do we see good numbers of the mangrove snapper.
**Don’t forget, that we have some great videos on our fishing tips and tricks page here to show you how to target and rig for the hogfish -> https://www.hubbardsmarina.com/fishing-tips
Offshore Fishing Report
Red grouper are back open and the 12 hour extreme went out there and crushed the red grouper on the opening day! We got more than two dozen red grouper that were big old fat keepers on the squid, threadfins, and the pinfish. Big dead baits and bigger live baits work well for the red grouper. We are posting a secret red grouper bait video to our tiktok later tonight if you want to check that out too! They are not going to rock you up, so around 60lb leader and around a 7ot circle hook works well. However, your hook size should match the bait so if your using a big hunk of meat for bait you will need a bigger hook as you always want that barb exposed.
Keep in mind, triggerfish closed when red grouper opened up, but they will re open march first for the year with a June and july spawning closure. We are still seeing tons of the big mangroves, lanes, vermillion, yellowtail, almacos, porgies and more too! There’s tons of other fish to catch with our good eating red grouper. Great time to get out there when the weather allows as these fish are fired up between the fronts.
**REMEMBER, when fishing deeper near shore and especially offshore the Descend Act is in effect so when in federal waters you must have a descending device or venting tool ‘rigged and ready’ so be prepared with that venting tool if you know exactly where to vent the fish, but if you don’t here’s some helpful tips – https://bit.ly/3L5HTnv Plus, keep in mind using a descending device is super easy and doesn’t take much practice or as much precision as venting does, and right now you can get over $100 in FREE DESCENDING DEVICE GEAR by visiting this link and taking a short course on barotrauma mitigation techniques that will help more fish survive! The course is only about 10-15 minutes, and it will really help you preserve, protect, and proliferate our offshore fishery so spread the word -> https://returnemright.org/
