The beach is the place to be, sun, sand and Big snook. Within feet of the sand large spawning female snook cruise looking for an easy meal. Snook have the feed bag on for the upcoming spawn. With Mike and Maureen onboard the plan was simple, slay snook on the beach.
The bait well was full of frisky white baits. The Skyway Bridge is so thick with bait you can almost walk on it. It won't take more than a couple of tosses to fill the live well. With water temperatures now pushing the upper 80's it's important to have a strong pumps keeping the oxygen levels high. Another trick is take a milk jug and freeze it then place in the live well.
The beach only had several boats fishing, a hide tide ready to flush out of Tampa Bay and light breezes. What could be better. We made several moves with only a few hits to show for our efforts so far. Maureen hooked a strong fish making numerous strong runs. Maureen skillfully landed a 4' Bonnet Head shark. Another Captain friend caught a beautiful snook that was 36" right next to us. We moved back inside from the beach and immediately got on the trout bite. For short periods of time the trout were very active chasing baits all over the flats.
Pinellas Point was the next stop on our four hour trip. Quickly we found small black tip sharks or maybe they found us either way there are great fighters. Again it was Maureen's reel that started screaming and quickly ran many yards of braid off the Quantum Cabo spinning reel. After running to the front of the boat and back we saw the beautiful 30" + Snook on the end of the line. This was Maureen's very first snook, she did a great job landing the big fish.
Our four hour trip was over, great way to end the trip with two great people.
Capt. Steven
