Winter weather subsided early this week. Light winds and clear skies made for some great sight fishing on the Southshore Tampa Bay flats. Tom White and I saw as many redfish as I have ever seen on the flats south of Apollo Beach, but the bite proved to be slow. White caught one fish on a RipTide mullet, my most productive artificial this winter. I expect that had to do with being under a prolonged period of high pressure with a stable barometer. The best action occurs when the barometer is rising or falling sharply.
Capt. Danny Guarino reported seeing schools of redfish on the flats between Piney Point and Cockroach Bay. I don't know where all these fish came from, but it's sure good to see. In 13 years of guiding on Tampa Bay, I have never seen more redfish than I have in the past two weeks.
There were also large numbers of bonnethead sharks on the flats south of Apollo Beach. Lately, frozen squid has proven to be more productive than live shrimp.
The deepwater action on grouper continues to be good. On a trip with Capt. Billy Jordan we pulled a couple of grouper trolling off the ship channel, but then the bite died.
I saw several pods of snook on the flats this week, and also under the docks around the mouth of the Little Manatee River. As bait arrives in the bay, the snook will come out of their winter quarters to greet them and eat them.
Weather took a turn for the worse on Friday with a good blow out of the southeast, and that will probably shut things down for a few days. Water temperature was up to 67 degrees earlier this week but began to drop again on Thursday. Any decline in water temperature generally shuts down the bite for a couple of days. A moving barometer coupled with a rise in water temperature on Monday should pick things up.
For more information, call Capt. Fred Everson at 813 830 8890, or visit his website at tampabayfishingguide.com.
