Tampa Bay Feb 22 Fishing Report
Spring is in the air and flats fishing is really beginning to heat up. This week coming up should mark the beginning of the flats explosion. Snook, Redfish and Trout are invading the clear shallow flats as I write this. Today's water temperatures almost made it into the mid 70s by late afternoon and the fish started to crank up.
We have been catching a few Snook but that's going to change big this week. I expect, after looking at the long term forecast, we will have some 50 plus Snook days next week. Red fishing has already exploded. They just started moving onto the flats the last couple of days and there are a ton of them and nice size ones to; the Reds are hungry too. A lot of time when they first get onto the flats in early spring they can be a little finicky, but that's the opposite from what I have seen this past week. They are hungry and ready to feed. The Trout fishing is very good right now especially for trophies. We landed a 27 incher today and several others over 24.
I have been getting offshore quite a bit lately, that's what a lot of my charters have been asking to do. The Mangrove Snapper have been on fire, the Grouper bite has been pretty good for keeper Reds and there are all the catch and release Gag Grouper out there you want to catch. I have also been picking up some nice Flounder offshore. There are also a few Cobia sneaking around the wrecks along with Mackerel and False Albacore.
All in all the fishing is very good right now, but that's no surprise, that's a pretty standard report for the end of February. I hope you enjoyed my report, if you are looking to get out fishing give a call. Until next time have a great time on the water.
Capt. Matt Ercoli
www.CaptainMatt.com
941-447-9888
