Its was great to get back on the waters of Tampa Bay, Florida Sunday after a week fishing the Pacific for Blue Marlin off Maui. Unlike Maui's marlin fishing our Tampa Bay is greatly effected by weather, all my local Captain friends explained last week was very cold and rainy. That became very evident once on the water as the temperature had plunged to 55. Captain Randy of Start Me Up charters in Maui explained the water temperatures never change more than 8 degrees off the coast of Hawaii and the changes are slow to occur. To go from fishing 600-1200' of open blue water to 3-12' flats is a big change!
Reports from the Ft Desoto area were not optimistic so we decided to run Sunday's trip around Weedon Islands. We focused on the deep holes off the power plant then docks and canal's on the Southern end of Weedon Island. Armed with shrimp and an arsenal of soft plastic baits we were now ready to slay the trout. Rigging is simple, 10 pound Power Pro braided line connected by a double uni knot to 15-25 pond fluorocarbon leader finished with a size 1 or 1/0 circle hook. If fishing deeper than 4' add a either split shot or sliding sinkers as needed. Use caution keeping the weighs to the bare minimum as extra tension on the line will result in a bait quickly spit out. There are many great soft and hard lures available on the market use what you are most confident with. My personal favorites are the DOA Glo shrimp and the MirrOlure's MirrOdine. Either lure is easy to use , both cast a long ways which allows you to cover a lot of water quickly.
Our first stop was ok with numerous ladyfish hooked along with several trout in 15 minutes of fishing. Nothing spectacular but ok to start the day. I don't often fish the 4th st area near the Howard Franklin Bridge but being nearby I thought it worth the short run as the tide was very low and there would be a good chance the trout would be stacked up in the deep channel leading in and out. We took only 2 small trout and decided to hit the deeper water near the power plant. Conditions were awesome, flat seas with lots of sun and the temperature on its way to 70. As a Professional Captain I stunk up the place with not so much as one hit on this stop! Enough is enough so I ran to one of my can't miss winter trout holes. Upon arrival I was greeted with the lowest water level at this spot that I had ever encountered prior. Typically I have to anchor but was able to use my Power Pole to set up in place. We took a handful of trout with smaller most under 15"s, shrimp and soft plastics worked equally. I spotted sheep's head on the dock beside us and had one of the guys quickly drop a piece of shrimp just as a small sheepie was ready to grab it a much larger one darted out, inhaled the bait and wrapped the line around two pilings. We managed to land several sheep head with one weighing in at 4 pounds. Looking back I should have stayed put as the next 3 stops accounted for zero!
The nice trout picture is of Jackie Otto of Betts fishing center, she took this great looking keeper trout in St. Josephs sound off Clearwater. Promising weather forecast this week should warm the water and heat up the action. The next week we are running a night snook trip that should be interesting, 2 trips fishing Tampa Bay's eastern shoreline and a trout trip in Clearwater's St Joseph sound.
Capt. Steven
