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Baitfish Bonanza Leads To Great Results

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By RAY MARKHAM

Published: October 14, 2008

It's been a long time since I've seen this much bait in Tampa Bay. The entire South Shore of the bay has been covered with scaled sardines and threadfin herring.

Because of it, predators of all kinds are feasting on the gathering of bait. In the last week cobia, Spanish mackerel, flounder, trout, bluefish, redfish, jack crevalle, ladyfish, grouper, black sea bass, and pinfish by the boatloads have been on the catch list. If you're fishing soft plastic tails, expect to lose a lot of tails to pinfish and puffers if you're fishing this area.

One trip this past week our quest was to locate schools of redfish that seem to have scattered in previous days. Singles and pairs of fish had been the norm for recent red fishing trips, and it could be because there was so much bait scattered from one end of the bay to the other.

Concentrations of bait schools tend to bring predators together to feed. So, with so much bait around, schools of reds seem to spread out.

We began our trip fishing Terra Ceia Bay south of the Skyway Bridge, catching mid-slot redfish and trout to 23-inches on CAL Jigs with Shad tails. We continued north around Joe Island with similar success, noting cobia, an assortment rays, and numerous bonnethead sharks roaming the flats.

Continuing north of Port Manatee, bait schools got thicker until we reached the mouth of Cockroach Bay. Besides the sardines and greenbacks, mullet were more abundant as well. Working the edges of the schools in open water, and the edges of the mangroves begin producing good numbers of reds. The final tally of reds was 14 slot fish. Noticeably absent were snook.

Ray Markham co-hosts "Florida Sportsman Magazine Radio Live," Saturdays from 8-9 a.m. on News Talk 820 AM, and can be reached for charter at (941) 723-2655.

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