Tampa Bay April 7 Fishing Report
Wow, the fishing has been spectacular, pretty much if it swims in these waters it biting. We have been destroying the fish. We still had to work around some interesting weather but it hasn't slowed us except for yesterday's thunder storms. We still got a couple hours in on some big Snook.
Inshore fishing has been really good. Snook are biting like crazy. The day before yesterday we caught over 50. Over 20 of those Snook where on a fly rod and one was 32 inches. That's a good Snook on the fly anywhere in the world. We have been catching a lot of good size Snook up to 34 inches. Pretty much every day we are catching them over 30. I want to stress to people that yes the closed Snook season is working, but there is still a huge amount of water that used to hold thousands of Snook that really has few fish. So yes the Snook fishing is great in certain areas but with the amount of guides on the water if the state were to reopen Snook season it would only take the fishing guide about a month to clean out the big fish. Even if we had a population like we had 50 years ago. If they where to reopen Snook it would only take the fishing alone one year to decimate the population. In this day and age it's really not possible to kill Snook and keep a strong population. It takes too long for them to grow and there are way too many good fishermen catching them. If they leave it closed we will be catching 40 plus inchers on a daily bases in another 10 years. It's just that simple, I have been doing this too long to be wrong about that statement. The Coast Guard also needs to put a moratorium on handing out Capt. License, there are way too many out there already. Could you imagine if we had Snook fishing with 40 inch fish being the norm? Tampa bay would be the world's greatest fishing destination.
The Redfish are on fire as well as keeper fish mixed in with the Snook. There are also large schools of Bull Reds biting fast enough you can't keep your bait in the water when they are really on the feed. The larger schools of Reds have a lot of fish in the 25 to 33 inch class. Tremendous fighters on light tackle. If you want a few more fish to eat big trout are still biting well. Last time out we had one that was 28 inches, a true trophy.
The offshore is really heated up as well. The Kingfish are starting to gear up; this should be a big week for them. Red Grouper is in season and there are plenty of keepers out there. The Gages are out and there are some giants biting. One of my buddies had a 40 pound Gage a few days ago. The Tunny and Mackerel are thick as thieves. All the Flounder you can catch. Mangrove Snapper are an added bonus and there are a few Cobias around.
There are some Tarpon in the bay feeding now; it will continue to heat up from here on.
I hope you enjoyed my report. Enjoy yourself on the water.
Capt. Matt
941-447-9888
captainmatt@captainmatt.com
www.captainmatt.com
