It's that time of year…if you can fish for it, more than likely, you can catch it! One of my favorite times of year to fish is right now during late summer and early fall. On occasion, fishing can be a bit tougher than usual this time of year, but only because of foul weather or bunk tides. If you want to catch tarpon, snook, redfish, trout, snapper, grouper, or sharks now is the time to do it.
I'm happy to report that the tarpon are still here and more happy to report that they are still biting. I think that I've caught more tarpon over the past month than I did the entire summer. Well, maybe not… but it sure has been a really great bite lately. Mostly we have been catching tarpon in the Bay around the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and they have ranged in size from 20 lbs to 150 lbs. Each time we've fished for the great silver kings we've managed to get at least one to the boat if not a few to the boat. Tarpon fishing can be tricky. Once you've hooked a tarpon, if you don't have a perfect bow in the rod when the fish jumps, the fish wears through the leader, or if she finds some structure to wrap you around and break you off, you've lost the fish. Tarpon fishing should remain good throughout the fall season.
If redfish is the fish of your choice, it's all you want to catch these days. Because many of the redfish are moving back into the Bays, it is easy to find some really great schools of them. It's also a great time of the year to catch some of the really big redfish. About half of the schools of fish that have shown up in the Bay the last couple of weeks are really big fish. Many of the fish are over 30 inches. Take a look at the pictures… redfishing has been outstanding.
Snook are back in season. We haven't been targeting the snook a lot lately. Most of the snook that we've caught have been while fishing for redfish or trout. Like the redfish, you have to catch a lot of snook before you catch one in the slot of 28 inches to 33 inches, but if you work at it awhile, you will catch some that fit the slot. As the fall season comes, bigger snook will appear. We did catch a few snook that were around 30 inches or a little bigger last week. We are beginning to see many of the bigger fish moving back into the Bay. Snook fishing is just going to continue to get better. Please visit www.castawaychartersinc.com, take a look at the pictures, and book your trip today!
