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Week Brought A Mixed Bag

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 24, 2008

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.

Captains Chet Jennings and Danny Guarino both told me they were catching big snook last week.

Guarino said he caught and released six snook in the 28- to 33-inch slot, and Jennings released a 33-inch snook, and several more between 28 and 33 inches. Both captains were fishing with live bait from the Little Manatee River to Cockroach Bay.

Guarino said he was getting his bait around the Sunshine Skyway, but it was staying close to the bottom. He also said he took a couple of trips to Fort DeSoto, where he caught ladyfish and trout on live sardines.

Another cold front crossed the Bay this week. I fished from my canoe between Sand Key and Mag's Hole, but I did not find much outside the reef. Tides were so low early in the morning I couldn't get my boat off the lift until midafternoon.

Thursday, I did some scouting with captain Tom Rinehart of Apollo Beach. It was overcast and windy, so we didn't see much aside from bonnethead sharks on the flats south of Symphony Isles. The sharks were a lot deeper than I usually find them, but they were hungry. We landed two in short order, and got cut off by two more. All were in the 10-pound class.

Cloudy skies and wind-roiled water combined to frustrate our search for redfish, but the sun did peek out of the clouds for five minutes. Then we saw eight or 10 redfish, which all looked to be oversized. They would not eat anything. It was a quiet day on the flats, with hardly a mullet making a splash.

Captain Larry Malinoski told me he ran into a huge school of black drum in the middle of the Bay off Bahia Beach on Friday. He said he was on the fish for 4 1/2 hours and boated fish that weighed up to 40 pounds. Big drum are formidable fighters, but they often are infested with internal parasites.

To contact captain Fred
Everson, call (813) 830-8890

or visit his Web site,

tampabayfishingguide.com.

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