Mondays trip started with NE winds blowing 17 at 5 am which is never a good thing. The Skyway Bridge had big waves making bait gathering tuff so I ran to Ft Desoto fishing pier which offered protection from the wind. One toss of my net gathered enough bait for my 4 hour charter and enough to load up another nearby Captain.
Back at O'Neill's Marina I picked up 6 & 8 year old brothers Jet and Jake along with Mom and Dad. These 2 super young boys fished with me last year and are a real blast to have onboard. With the brisk winds I did not want to run across Tampa Bay to my red hot trout spot so we started with plan B. We started on a flat adjacent to the Marina only to find the trout were gone and catfish moved in. The boys quickly caught 5 or 6 catsfish then we moved to Ft Desoto.
Our first stop produced a catfish and lots of Dolphins! Our next stop in another trout hot spot we took a jack a trout and a another cat. As honest as kids are one looked me in the eyes and said this isn't a good spot! Our third stop we quickly nailed 3 trout then just that quick the action stopped. I decided to change gears and we motored to the ICW and set up along a deep grass flat. The action started with a dogfish then things got better. We got cutoff by several Mackerel, one of the boys got a nice Mack to the boat only to have it cut the line. We managed a few more trout and Ladyfish. Then one of the rods screamed and I was amazed to see Jet in a battle with a Cobia. He got it to the boat quickly then the Cobia went nuts spraying water all over the place.
We ended the day on another grass flat catching Ladyfish, Trout and more Catfish. Overall the day was slower than I would like for young kids. Keeping the rods bent is important for youngsters.
Captain Steven Markovich
