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Skinny Water, Fat Fish

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By FRANK SARGEANT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 21, 2007

The deep spots are two feet, top to bottom.

In captain Chet Jennings' world of winter fishing, "shallow" takes on a whole new meaning.

"We catch some fish in water less than 12 inches deep," he said, "and sometimes you wade across a hundred yards of nothing but mud to get to the best spots."

Jennings, via his airboat, and a few other intrepid anglers, via wading or paddling canoes or kayaks, visit waters far too shallow for even the smallest powerboats to motor across during the extreme low tides that occur after winter cold fronts.

"For a day or two after a front, we usually get a strong wind out of the northeast, and that tends to blow all the water off the flats along the north and east side of bays on the west coast," Jennings said. "If the front comes on a new or full moon, it's just that much better because those will be the lowest tides of the month, anyway."

I joined Jennings and his father, C.M. Jennings, for a morning last week just before the cold front, and we found perfect conditions: dead low water, calm winds and plenty of fish prowling the holes.

"You need something that won't snag in the grass, because you're in it almost all the time," Jennings advised. "Either that or you have to cast to the sand potholes where there are a few bare spots."

Seeing Red

Chet and C.M. used weedless-rigged soft plastic jerkbaits, which allowed them to cast just about anywhere without picking up weeds. I went with a 4-inch Tsunami swimbait, less weedless but a very good shallow-water lure.

We motored along the southeast shore of Tampa Bay until we came to an area where Chet said he had been seeing lots of reds, and then everybody went over the side.

Our first stop yielded three short reds, all on the outside edge of the bar where a little slough was draining the last of the outgoing water. On one cast, I had three different fish rush the bait. The first two got briefly hooked, then escaped, but the third caught the barb in the corner of his mouth. These were 15-inchers, a year from reaching the legal 18-inch minimum.

But this was blind casting, and Chet's favorite tactic is seeking out tailing fish, reds rooting in the shallow bottom and showing their tails above the surface. We eased a couple hundred yards down the shore and, sure enough, we came to a spot where we saw a half-dozen blue-gray tails waving in the morning sun.

"These fish are spooky," Jennings said. "Wade slow and make long casts, and don't land it on their heads."

The water was too shallow and the bottom too loaded with grass for my swimbait, so I switched to a topwater. On the first cast, I got a big blowup on the lure, but pulled it away from him. Fish spooked in all directions from the commotion.

A few seconds later, Chet made a perfect cast to a tailer, about five feet ahead of it, and the fish instantly charged his bait. He wrestled it in, another 15- to 16-inch junior.

"I'm seeing about 20 fish for every one that even looks at the lure," Jennings said. "They're eating something on the bottom and ignoring the lure most of the time."

A Quick Comeback

I found another slough with water moving through it, pitched the topwater upcurrent and twitched it a couple of times. A snook close to 30 inches long walloped it, jumped a couple of times and threw it back at me.

Jennings said a few snook were still on the outside because of the unusually warm weather. (They're probably no longer there after the most recent front blew through.)

Chet got out his fly rod and quickly caught a nice trout out of the flow. A few minutes later I hooked another small red.

About that time, C.M., who had been having a slow morning, suggested I might want to come his way with the camera. His rod was bent double and I could see water flying as a jumbo red plowed across the bar.

About five minutes later, C.M. was gripping and grinning on a 30-inch redfish.

"That fish was in water maybe eight inches deep," C.M. said. "It's amazing how shallow they get."

The action continues throughout the winter, though the first day after an extreme temperature drop is usually poor.

For more information, captain Chet Jennings can be reached at (813) 477-1513.

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