Saturday morning (530 am) the bay was thick with dense fog. It took me an hour just to get to the Skyway Bridge from the marina. The run to the Skyway is a very narrow channel with either side very shallow. A GPS is a must to navigate the channel safely. White bait was a dense as the fog when I finally arrived. With a slack tide I was able to motor up to my bait hole without having to anchor. Three quick tosses of the net and the live well was stuffed!
Barry and his son Nolan from Cincinnati were my anglers onboard today. I picked them up at 830 only to have the fog still thick so it would be a slow run to Pinellas Point. As we headed east the sun tried valiantly to break through the fog with no luck. It was actually very serine, flat calm water with holes of sunrays.
Tossing scaled sardines in 5-8' of water we quickly got on the bite. Nolan was on fire as he could hardly go several minutes without hearing his drag scream. Nolan is a 7 year old hockey playing second grader with endless energy and a ton of really good questions. Spotted sea trout, mackerel, ladyfish, grouper, jacks, bluefish and 2 species of catfish rounded out his catches. Nolan asked me what type bait we were using so I told him white bait with a few threadfins mixed in. I was shocked as Nolan looked into the live well and quickly told me the differnce between the 2 baits! I was amazed how smart Nolan is, many adults can't tell the difference.
What's the age old saying never leave fish to find fish? Wanting to get in the snook action we headed across the bay to Joe Island. With an incoming tide we hit 2 of my snook holes only to find both snookless! We moved outside the flats without success. With the forecast for freshening South winds by early afternoon I decided to head back to Pinellas Point as to not have to run the ship channel as it surely will get sloppy. The action started again as quickly as it did the first time. Nolan who is a very good angler landed 3 big mackerel all around 28".
Thanks Nolan & Barry for a great day on the water.
Capt. Steven
