Happy New Year Fisherman. Have you made all your resolutions for 2009? Here are some great New Year resolutions. Clean and lube your reels. Re spool your reels with your favorite line. Check you rods guides as today's ceramic guides can chip or fray. Organize you tackle bag or box, toss out all the rusted or broken tackle. Take inventory and stock up as many tackle stores are having great sales. If you are not up to working on your rods or reels check out you local tackle store as they have the parts and are the true experts.
Here on Tampa Bay Florida 2009 started where 2008 left off with sunny warm days, light winds and some great fishing action. For On the Mark Charters and Capt. Steven it's been an incredible fall and winter. Sunday once again we focused our trip on Snook, Redfish and Trout. The day started with bait which had been easy to catch being a major chore! I tossed the net till I was worn out, that was special! I did manage enough to go fish to we left the Skyway Bridge in our stern and headed for Tampa Bay's eastern shoreline. Spotted sea trout season is open and it's was apparent as the flats off Little Cockroach were lined with boats on the outer edge catching trout 14-17'. I duplicated the locations we had been scoring on the last month, mangrove shorelines with deep drop offs with the water right at 70 degrees. We fished both the outgoing and incoming tides with equal success, the tides overall were weak due to the moon phase. Dave and Jim did a great job on the snook after a slow start. While the snook were not chewing like they have the last month it was still a very good day with over 30 snook boated. We also scored on small redfish and trout. Technique was simple trout pounced on DOA shrimp bounced along the bottom. In almost every case the trout will hit the jig on the way down. Live shrimp with a float keeping the bait of the grass is also very effective and a great tool for kids and new fisherman. Snook and Redfish rigging was 30 pound fluorocarbon leader with a 1/0 hook. Check you leader carefully after each snook as you will almost always find the 2 inches of leader above the hook badly frayed, take time and retie don't lose a big fish due to laziness. Back at the marina we observed several grouper charters returning with limits of big gag grouper.
Capt. Steven
www.onthemarkcharters.com
