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Fish are on the move

By MIKE ANDERSON

Tribune correspondent

Published: November 13, 2009

This week's windy conditions didn't lend itself to much fishing, but things started to look a little friendlier as the weekend approached.

Cooler air temps are moving the snook schools up the rivers and into their fall and winter haunts.

Good numbers of these fish can be enticed with live greenbacks as they are trying to fatten up for the winter ahead.

Artificial shrimp also work very well this time of year with the Berkley Gulp shrimp leading the charge.

I have the best luck this season with the 3-inch model in molting color fished on a quarter-ounce jig head. Worked around the docks in the rivers and residential canals, this can be a deadly combination.

If hard baits are your thing, try the 7MR 11 floating twitchbait by MirrOlure. This is one of the best, if not the very best, winter hard bait on the market as it allows for a very slow presentation. This gives fish in cold-water conditions time to react to it and strike.

Late fall and winter also mean great redfish and trout fishing on Tampa Bay. The waters tend to clear up, so the sight-fishing for reds gets spectacular. This won't be the case this weekend with a full week of wind, but during the next month or so the waters should start to clear up some.

Again, pretty hard to beat the Gulp baits on this front as these scented dandies are pretty hard for reds to turn down. Just remember to use as light a jig head as possible to reduce the splash and be sure to lead the fish. Don't hit him in the head. It won't work.

As for the trout, the colder it gets the more big fish seem to pile onto the flats. The season remains closed until Jan. 1 in the south region so be sure to release these fish carefully as our Tampa trout fishery is rebounding very nicely.

Catch Billy Nobles and Mike Anderson on the "Reel Animals Fishing Show" on Saturdays from 6:30-7 a.m. and Sundays from 11-11:30 a.m. on WFLA, Channel 8, and on Sundays from 7-9 a.m. on 620 AM.

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