May 11,2009
I took off at dawn to locate bait at the local bridges. Most white bait hang out at the bridges at night. The bridge street lights cast a shadow line on the water from above. Cruise along these shadow lines and you will soon find the bait.
After about 30 minutes I had bait for the day. The sun just broke above the tree line like some big orange glow ball. I headed to the first spot out on the beach hoping to find some hungry snook. After setting up and chumming some live baits, our first fish was a nice trout. It was small just under the size limit of 15 inches. Next we caught several ladyfish, one 14 inch cobia and a stingray. We had a couple of porpoises hanging around looking for a hand out. It seems like somebody has been feeding them because they stayed just 15 to 20 feet off the boat.
Porpoise have been known to eat a snook on your line while reeling them in. Maybe they are getting use to hanging out at boats for a quick meal.
We decided to move inside the pass to another snook area. The tide just changed and started in. This time of year, most of the passes along the West Coast of Ftorida hold snook in numbers. May starts their spawning process and all along the beachse and passes will be loaded with fish. Some passes are better than others. Use a good incoming or outgoing tide to locate the fish. Look just inside of the passes on the back side of the beaches or spoil islands and make sure you have good moving water. Finally we landed a nice 28" snook. Also caught several others in the 24" size range. With snook, when the action starts up, get ready because it's fast and furious. After 45 minutes, the bite shut down and we moved on.
Next we moved over to some grass flats just inside the pass. I drifted with the incoming tide so I could cover the entire area. After a few minutes Joy found this nice 22" fat trout. Big trout like to hang out in passes and grass flats just inside. They are ambush feeders and they like the current to bring the food to them. Locate moving water just inside a pass in 3 to 4 feet of water and you will find the trout.
The tide slowed so we decided to call it a day. Make sure you fish where there is moving water, either incoming or outgoing and you will catch more fish.
Capt. Gary Burch
AllCatchCharters.com/
727 458-6335
