Today's action was good and frustrating. Strong early winds make bait gathering a chore. Good safety tip wear your PFD when cast netting bait on windy days.
With some of the highest tides of 2012 at hand I knew the redfish and trout would not be far from lower Tampa Bay Mangrove Islands. Its no secret there are several schools of redfish on lower Tampa Bay and on today's trip we arrived just minutes late as the reds were surrounded with no room for us. Redfish were being caught one after another adjacent to us. Hoping one of the boats would wave us in to join the fun never happened.
I decided to move to deeper 4-6' water to get on the trout bite. Nick quickly hooked up on a feisty 16" then another and another. Tom then got into the action which was steady for 30 minutes. Looking for bigger trout we moved to another grass flat targeting 2-4'. The action started quickly with bigger sea trout 18-19". We were cutoff by Mackerel several time. Look for Mackerel to invade Tampa Bay very soon.
We relocated tight to a Mangrove Island in 2' where Nick quickly landed a nice 20" trout. Tom and son Nick are from Green Bay and are super anglers. Nick then had his rod double coming tight on what I thought was a redfish. Tom said it's a big trout and was so correct. Nicks trout pushed 24" and was very fat. Awesome trout to say the least.
We ran back to where the redfish were only to find them once again surrounded.
Captain Steven Markovich
