Today was the second of a 2 day charter with Mike and Maureen. This morning they accompanied me to the Skyway Bridge for bait. We were greeted with a Chamber of Commerce morning with a beautiful sunrise and calm seas. Upon arrival to the south Skyway Bridge we were greeted by white baits flipping everywhere. In most cases one toss and you are done. I had a net issue or maybe operator error as my cast net came back a tangled mess. With bait now onboard we headed up Tampa Bays eastern shoreline.
Day 2 we focused on fishing the mangroves. We arrived at the last of the incoming tide which was slow at best. Once the tide turned the snook bite turned on. The first few snook were no match for the previous days 30" + snook. What they lacked in size they made up for in aerial displays. Mike got slammed and had a large snook treat him poorly running back into the mangroves. Mike was wise and gave the snook slack line and sure enough the bruiser came out. Good news for a minute, well the snook ran back into the mangroves against Mike's valiant efforts. Soon afterwards Mike hooked another that made 2 spectacular TV style jumps that eventually got away. Mike got hammered again with a similar result the big snook ended up in the mangroves. Check out the image of Mike trying to get his snook! Meanwhile Maureen was quietly becoming quite the angler. She landed numerous snook, trout and snapper. Mike also got into redfish.
Last stop of the trip we hoped to get another big snook instead we found numerous black tip sharks very eager to your offering even at boat side. Watching these black tips chase baits 2' from the boat is cool. With any shark large or small use caution when removing the hook. One of the best things about being a professional Captain is meeting people like Mike and Maureen.
Capt. Steven
