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Snook Elusive; Grouper Biting

Photo by RICK BOLLINGER

Derek Fingers of Valrico caught this nice grunt bottom fishing off the ships channel between Bahia Beach and Port Manatee, while fishing with Rick Bollinger.

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 17, 2008

The big outgoing tides that snook fishermen like will occur early in the morning, before sunrise as the full moon begins to wane. Water temperature is still in the high 80s and clarity is not very good. The good news is that there seems to be plenty of bait on the flats but thus far the snook have not been very cooperative.

On my most recent trip with Keli Emery, we found big pods of scaled sardines on the flats between Simmons Park and Apollo Beach, but you had to pick and choose when to throw the net. Most of the bait was in the three-inch class. I gilled a mess, but there were some bigger bait in the mix. We fished most of the usual holes but never had a strike and only a single pop on the chummers. We saw a few snook and more than a few redfish, but they would have nothing to do with live baits or lures. Water clarity was very murky and tannin stained, making it practically impossible to spot schools of bait over grass and difficult to see it in the potholes. The fish we did see were usually too close to the boat to do anything with.

Capt. Larry Malinoski of Ruskin tells me the grouper bite has been much better of late. While trolling, he's catching good numbers of fish between the Bahia Beach Reef and the Sunshine Skyway.

The mouth of the Little Manatee River has been carpeted with small baits lately, and I have seen schools of ladyfish, jack crevalles and even some small tarpon taking advantage.

Water temperature should start to decline in the next few weeks, and that will bring snook and redfish onto the flats. This has not been a very good redfish year thus far, but it's still early. The big schools of oversized fish have yet to appear on this side of the bay.

There are still plenty of mackerel around, and they should be with us until the baitfish migrations begin. That usually happens sometime in November as water temperature drops into the 70s.

Poor water clarity has precluded looking for cobia, but there are a few fish around. I haven't seen any on the flats, but there have been some fish on the range markers north of Apollo Beach. I like a calm day and a slack tide to run the marks looking for the big ling. Sometimes you can find tripletail on the same structure.

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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