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Winter Patterns Are Settling In

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 23, 2007

GO FISHING is a daily look at the area fishing scene through the eyes of local charter boat captains and fishing guides. Today: Fred Everson.

The first major cold front of the season has come and gone, and it pushed water temperatures back into the 60s. That should send snook scurrying for deeper, warmer water, but I'm still finding a few on the flats.

My buddy Gabe Krakowski of Brooklyn hooked a 26-inch snook on a jig rigged with a plastic shrimp just south of Apollo Beach, as well as a redfish and a cobia. It was only the second or third cobia I have seen this fall.

Tuesday we had a nice midafternoon low tide, and we found three pods of redfish off Simmons Park, and Krakowski hooked up with soft plastic and landed a fat 23-inch fish. I was throwing a snook fly at them, and they would have nothing to do with it.

We also saw several bonnethead sharks; the drop in water temperature will concentrate them on the flats. I have been casting free-lined live shrimp at them with good success.

Tom White of Skipper's Smokehouse in North Tampa also hooked a very big blacktip on my lightest rod as it cruised past the boat while we drifted off Mangrove Point. Mercifully the jig hook straightened or the fish would have either spooled us or snapped my rod.

Winter patterns should settle in during the next few weeks. Trout are back on the table New Year's Day, and the local guides I spoke to this past week all said there seem to be plenty of big trout around. The deep grass flats in front of the Cockroach Bay boat ramp, and those from Piney Point to Joe Island, are the southshore hot spots.

To contact captain Fred

Everson, call (813) 830-8890,

or visit his Web site,

tampabayfishingguide.com.

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