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Mild Winter Lights Up Fishing

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 29, 2007

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

The water was slick calm. Captain Michael Plastic, his brother Jim, grandson Kyler and I never expected so mild and serene a December day - but we weren't complaining.

Drifting the flats, the silence was interrupted by an occasional loud splash. "Did you see that? That looked like a huge pompano jumping way out of the water," Michael Plastic said.

Working Old Bayside Shrimp slowly across the grassy bottom, Jim and I hooked two impressive trout well more than 22 inches right off the bat. Then on successive drifts, we caught and released several more specs, as well as frisky blues, mackerel, sand perch, sea bass and a huge 22-inch pompano.

Usually, pomps are thought of as more of a warm-weather species. But with our benign winter conditions, they and several other subtropical game fish have elected to hang around our Suncoast waters.

Offshore, with abundant bait schools still percolating through every venue, remarkable numbers of Spanish and king mackerel are still available in our near-shore waters. In the "short rocks" just a few miles off the coast, grouper diggers have been cranking in some very nice keeper gags.

Those toasty conditions have also halted the annual winter snook migration. Captain Dan DeMarco, setting up on a Dunedin spoil, was expecting to catch some gator trout. However, he was amazed to see several very large linesiders still hanging around those islands.

Hear "The Captain Mel Show" on Saturdays from 6-9 a.m. on WFLA, 970 AM. Also, visit "Fishing Florida OnLine Magazine" at capmel.com.

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