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Snapper Bite On The Upswing

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 23, 2008

No use crying about the heat because it will probably be with us through Halloween.

The good news is that some of the summer fishing staples are starting to bite. Keli Emery and I went looking for cobia and tripletail one fine day with lots of sunshine, no wind and hot enough make you want to keep the boat on plane.

We began our day looking for scaled sardines on the flats south of the Cockroach Bay entrance channel, and we found plenty.

Unfortunately, most of the bait we encountered was way too small to fish with. Finally we found some bigger bait, but they were mixed in with the little guys. It took a dozen tosses to get enough big bait to fish with, and that was only about three dozen.

We were both tired of throwing the net and eager to put the boat on plane. When we got out to the shipping channel in the middle of the Tampa Bay, Keli pitched a bait under a channel marker on our first stop and it was instantly inhaled by a mangrove snapper.

In the Bay, those are mostly panfish sized, with an appropriately small length limit of 10 inches and a bag limit of five fish. Fifteen-inch mangroves are considered prime specimens because they are so tasty.

As Keli reeled the fish to the boat, we were surprised to see another 20 snapper of about the same size following the hooked fish.

This came as a surprise. Usually when I target mangrove snapper it is bottom fishing over structures such as an artificial reef, or a known rock pile. But here they were bunched up under a channel buoy.

Hot as it was, I kept the motor running to maintain position as we fished. We put eight fish on ice between 13 and 16 inches.

We decided to head north to the mouth of the Alafia River to continue our search for cobia and tripletail, but despite sunny skies and calm winds, we didn't find either.

We did see Spanish mackerel thrashing the surface, and numerous pods of big threadfin herring. Then it simply got too hot to fish and we took it back to the dock.

I talked to Capt. Mark Thomas later that day and he told me he got into a great trout bite off Pinellas Point, and also caught some big Spanish mackerel.

Mackerel have really begun to show themselves on the surface the past two weeks.

Fred Everson is a Ruskin fishing guide. All South Shore fishermen and guides may submit information and photographs to be included in this column by calling (813) 830-8890 or sending an e-mail to ihuntsnook@aol.com.

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