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Cooler Weather Will Bring More Bites

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 11, 2007

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

Fall has arrived, but you sure can't tell it from the air or water temperatures. While there are no fronts forecast in the near future, cooler weather is just around the corner. Reports from divers seem to be in agreement that there are good concentrations of fish on most ledges in 50 to 90 feet; we just need that cool weather spark to get them chewing.
Rough seas this past Saturday kept me from making the long run west to deep water. We made several stops in 65 to 80 feet of water and I was surprised to find the number of grouper that I did, confirming the divers' reports. Now granted most were shorts, but for what ended up being a half-day trip we did better than I expected. Dropping a mix of cut and live bait produced a few keeper gags to 15 pounds, some nice scamp and a mix of grunts, triggerfish, snapper and gobs of short red grouper. The fish would chew for a bit on a spot and then the bite would slow or just shut off. Jumping from spot to spot kept us on a steady bite and ensured we didn't overfish any one spot.

Reports from the deep side are about the same, lots of red snapper, limits of red grouper and a decent numbers of gags. The amberjack bite also has been steady with the fish running a little on the small side.
Captain Randy Rochelle runs the

'Gotta Go' out of St. Petersburg and

can be reached at (727) 365-3218

or www.islandercharters.net.

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