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Snapper Not Too Hard To Find

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 13, 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.

After a week of heavy afternoon thunderstorms, it finally dried up on Thursday. Keli Emery and I decided to fish for tripletail and cobia, but first we had to catch some bait. She told me she had found it the weekend before in front of the Cockroach Bay boat ramp. It was still there, but the baits that were big enough to fish with were scarce. After two hours and a dozen tosses of the net, we barely had enough to fish with.

We headed out to the shipping channel on a fast-falling tide. At our first stop, I kept the motor running while Keli pitched a bait under a buoy. She was instantly hooked up with a fat mangrove snapper, and there were a dozen fish behind it. I quickly baited up and also landed a keeper. We took four or five fish off that can, and two on the next. By then it was dead calm, so we ran all the way to the mouth of the Alafia River in search of cobia, but we never saw the first fish. There were, however, great schools of big threadfin herring on every bit of structure around Beer Can Island and Bird Island.

The following day, I fished with Tom White of Skipper's Smokehouse, and we went after some pompano I'd heard about around the Skyway. We found those fish easily - Tom put a keeper in the boat with his first cast. We caught three more and then decided to try the mangrove snapper again in the middle of the bay. The tide was slack by the time we got there, and we only caught two fish that were probably big enough to keep, but Tom released them anyway. He and I think alike; cleaning fish smaller than 15 inches is not worth the effort.

I'm finally seeing schools of Spanish mackerel and some bait pods around the shipping channels. They have been slow getting here, but it looks like the bite is in full swing.

Visit captain Fred Everson's Web site at Tampabayfishingguide.com for charter info or call (813) 830-8890.

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