The Florida Restaurant and Lodging association was held May 3. Captain Steven picked up his 4 anglers at Logger Head Marina and headed to a no motor zone grass flat area for trout. The plan was simple trout first thing then redfish then over to Tampa Bay's eastern shoreline for snook.
The first bait in was immediately hit before I could give Crystal the rod. Sadly the line went slack after a few seconds. Now I was positive the plan would work. Well the red hot large trout bite was slow the trout were primarily 14-16".
With the high tide nearing I took my anglers up tight to the Mangroves to fish for redfish. Several trout but not a redfish in sight. Finally a big trout the type that wins tournaments slammed a bait. At boat side the line broke a real heartbreaker.
I changed gears and we headed to deeper waters along the ICW. We took mackerel, ladyfish and trout. We also saw several tarpon 60-80 pounds but they didn't look at our baits. We were catching but nothing like the action the last 4 weeks.
We finished the day back fishing the grass flats. We did catch 3 or 4 Jacks which is great to see as they disappeared after the freeze. We final landed a big trout 22.5". 3 of my anglers had not fished prior but were experts by the end of our day.
Captain Steven Markovich
