Inshore Fishing Report
Redfish action is wild around the area right now from the back bay and upper bay areas all the way out to the beaches and all in between. WE are seeing redfish on a variety of structures, areas, and flats. From shorelines to the middle bay and all in between the redfish are fired up, concentrated, aggressive and feeding extremely actively. Best way to find them concentrations is to wait till you have a mid to low water time frame allowing you a better opportunity to ‘spot’ the redfish schools moving around the area. Then, Also you can find them by looking for the ‘meat chicken’ black mullet as Capt Mike Anderson likes to call them. Meaning, your looking for the black mullet that you think are small tarpon they are so large when jumping. If your able to find a mess of those big mullet, then almost always you will find some redfish numbers following those mullet. The smaller to medium sized mullet and the redfish are not as friendly and symbiotic as the big redfish will easily eat a finger mullet or smaller silver mullet. We are seeing most of the redfish around the area coming up on live shrimp, white bait, or cut dead baits. However, I would suggest the best option being the soft plastics or the white bait.
Trout action is heating up as the waters continue to cool down. We are seeing them move shallower, get more aggressive, and more concentrated too. They are typically spotted during the day on the flats, and specifically around the potholes, depth changes, or edges of the local grass. They are really keyed into the soft plastics for now or the green backs. However, as we continue to cool down the shrimp become an even better option.
Snook have virtually vacated the beaches and passes, but they are choking areas like the mouth of local creeks, river mouths, and flats on the way to these areas. Most o fhte snook have really moved back quickly and timely and are making a nice area for their winter time vacations. While they move back, often they will eat nicely especially if we get a little warm up. If its still remaining to be cooler than normal, the snook will not bite as well. But when they a ready to eat they normally smash the live bait, but sometimes will take a dead bait if its large enough.
Flounder action is going pretty well around the area, but they are currently closed due to a spawning protection. They will be closed October 15th through the end of November. However, they are still great fun to catch and are extremely active and aggressive right now because of the spawn. They love some big live shrimp on the bottom, but will also take small to medium pinfish too! They are ambush feeders looking to snatch anything that is on or near the bottom around the sandy areas they hang adjacent to structures.
Sheepshead action is going really well and warming up nicely to its crescendo around the cooler months of Dec – Feb. However, we are already starting to see a lot of these fish around the docks, seawals, and bridges of our passes. They love smaller hooks, lighter leader, minimal weights and smaller baits like a small fiddler crab, shrimp or even a piece of a bigger shrimp. Typically I use around a nickle sized piece of shrimp on a number one or one ot hook and around 15-20lb floro leader when targeting the sheepshead. If you need weight, a split shot is a good idea around 6-10 inches up from your hook on the leader.
Pompano action still around, but not super crazy. Tough to find the cleaner water areas they love when we have this adverse weather, but the sandy runs between flats, passes, cuts and bridge channels around the area are good places too look. Also the edge of local flats up the bay work too.
Triple tail are thicker and thicker around our area right now on the markers, buoys, and floating debris. We see them starting in the fall and they persist through the spring season. They love the live shrimp, greenbacks and sometimes even artificials. This is stone crab season now, and that means plenty of added buoys for them to hide out under.
Tarpon are still around believe it or not, but for the most part the tarpon we are seeing most of now are the smaller juvenile fish that call tampa bay home. They are typically back up around the rivers, creeks and bayous and we typically see the bigger ones caught by the snook fisherman soaking big baits for snook in these back bay and upper bay areas.
**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
Mackerel are here to stay for a few weeks in our near shore waters. There are tons of bait schools hanging around our local area beaches and near shore artificial reefs, wrecks and larger structures. They are attracting lots of the mackerel and in return, the mackerel drive the bait to the surface making them easier to spot and find. Plus, we are seeing them hanging around the big structures too even when the bait isn’t concentrated enough to get pushed to the surface. We are seeing them hanging on the crab trap lines too while trolling on the way out and back while near shore fishing. We are not far from the time we start to spot the kingfish too, but for now its mostly mackerel in our near shore waters. We did see the first nice kingfish caught from the skyway area this past week, so it won’t be long till we get inundated with kingfish action along with the mackerel.
Hogfish action is going well around the near shore waters too. WE are seeing them most on our 10 hour all day and near shore private charters, but you have a shot for them on our 5 hour half day too. We catch them most on the live shrimp, but you can find them using a whole or even partial crab for bait too. We go in depth on how to target, catch and even cook them on our fishing tips and tricks page and recent fishing report video. Hoping you ‘caught’ those tips and tricks already!
Lane snapper have been extremely common near shore too especially while targeting the hogfish on live shrimp. However, we do get them on the cut squid and the threadfins too. Great time to get out and catch the lane snapper up while we are out there targeting the hogfish near shore around 30-80ft of water.
Mangrove snapper are a bit more frequent than the hogfish, but no where nearly as prolific and aggressive as the lane snapper. We are seeing them often on live shrimp and small chunk of the threadfin. Near shore mangrove snapper fishing we are typically using live shrimp or chunks of the threadfin. However, when near shore mangrove fishing we are using like 30lb floro and double snelled 4ot hooks with the hooks really close together compared to what we would normally see on the offshore set ups for the hogfish.
Offshore Fishing Report
Gag grouper season has ended, but we have so many more fish to catch and we are pumped to start having tons of room! We have scamp grouper, strawberry grouper, triggerfish, lane snapper, vermillion snapper, mangrove snapper, yellowtail snapper, mutton snapper, and so many other fish to go catch too!
The triggerfish bite lately has been going well and we are seeing plenty of the bigger triggerfish lately on the smaller chunks of the cut fish like the bonita strips for example.
Mangrove snappers have been super prolific, aggressive and large overall while offshore too. We are targeting them with the double snell rig with around 5-6ot hooks an now that gags are closed, I would suggest utilizing around 30-40lb leader. Typically for me this time of year when we have less people around, and plenty of great eating fish but wont try their best to break you or rock you up, we will be using lighter leaders, smaller hooks, and smaller baits with lighter tackle set ups too! Around a 30-40lb class set up and 5-6ot hooks would be a great go to with the gags and reds closed.
Yellowtail snapper are really active right now too plus, we are seeing some big mutton snapper too. It’s an awesome time to get out there and capitalize on the lighter loads, unique fishing, and great opportunities to try some new techniques and spread out.
For example this weekend’s trip we have only 21 people going and capt will is going back to mutton mountain and planning to do some jigging, flat line fishing and having a good time fishing a light spinning reel on a knocker for some big mutton, kings, tuna, mahi and plenty of the more typical fish we see too!
**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/
