Over the past couple weeks the number one question I get is, ‘what’s biting?’. The answer is variety, and that is a good thing. For those looking to put fresh fish on the table, we have been on a hot snapper bite inside Tampa Bay. Mixed in with the snapper have been large sheephead, flounder, red and gag grouper, and key west grunts. All delicious and fun to catch on light tackle. Shrimp has been the bait of choice fished on a one ounce sinker. The bite has been hot with double and triple hookups common.
Inshore Variety
Closer to shore the trout have been on fire, with some spots yielding over 5o fish. Again, shrimp has been the number one bait, but soft plastic jigs worked very slowly also has been producing. We have had some nice surprises inshore too. Some large cobia have been prowling around ready to eat whatever you can throw at them. Capt. Kyle and crew caught a nice 25 pounder on a shallow sand flat while fishing for other species. Variety abounds.
Variety, or lack thereof
Yesterday’s charter featured the opposite of the last 2 weeks. We only caught one big trout, but managed to catch 50 snook. No one was complaining about that. We have not targeted snook due to the colder weather for about a month now. Yesterday we ditched the variety and found the snook ready to eat. And they put on quite a show for the crew from Canada. So the next month features some of our best weather and fishing. While most of the country is freezing, we are enjoying 80 degree temps and hot fishing. So grab the family and friends and head to Tampa Bay for some inshore fishing. It is a nice way to escape the cold and experience some great Florida fishing variety.
Capt. Kyle
