Jan Fishing with Doc

Got out and fished with Dr. Schuster on a low tide Jan. morning on the South Shore of Tampa Bay.  We followed the path that John and I blazed the other morning with a little more purpose and a better idea about where we wanted to fish so we didn't waste much time getting some early morning action.  After launching at EG we ran down to the Roach to fish some open flats on the falling tide before the switch.  We found some pot holes with some redfish pretty quickly and had the cooler loaded with dinner at the first stop.

The bite shut down so we ran back closer to the launch to catch up with the tide and at first I thought we had made a bad decision but we rewarded with some scattered fish around some pot holes though the tide was a little higher than we really needed.  One memorable fish came on a crunched shrimp over a pot hole, as it swirled and missed the shrimp on the first pass the red hammered it after I stopped it and and it fell into the sand.

We had a quick lunch and tried a couple more pot holes but noticed the tide was pretty high for the area we were fishing 2+ ft (seems like a lot of water but not for these fish).  So we had some room to explore for a little while with some moving water so we headed in a direction that I hadn't gone looking for some structure a little closer to the mangroves.  We figured that the fish that were on the flats might be moving to structure a little closer in.  After getting no bites in a sand hole closer to the mangroves we noticed a sand hole that ran out from the mangroves into the grass that looked like it could hold some fish.  Well it did...

We stopped counting at the number of redfish we pulled out of that hole but below are some pictures and some video.  If you put a shrimp into the sand it would get picked up almost as soon as it hit the water.

One last video.  Doc hooks up quickly and comes unbuttoned and I fire a piece of a shrimp back in and bring one right in!

All out amazing day.  Looking forward to getting back out there again and targeting some shallow water redfish.

Fishing with John

Went out on Sat fishing with John.  Picked up some shrimp and got launched at EG Simmons Park and quickly made a cool run up to Cockroach Bay.  Not many people out on the water yet since we were out early and braving the cold but pulled up on the flat to some low water and a tide that was still moving out just a little, even though tide change had already came and passed...  We finally found some potholes with some action around them and I think we caught the fish that we had spooked early from a smaller hole inside the sandbar.

We figured we were done there after these guys came through....  Dolphins crashing through the mullet!  They were much closer than the camera showed. 

We moved on down back north of EG Simmons and were joined by at least 10 boats so we pulled into the mangroves to get away from people but unfortunately we got away from the fish as well.  So other than a few trash fish inside it was not much of anything.  But by that point it was getting late and the tide was already pretty far in so we headed back to the launch and headed home.

Fishing with Vance

Took the boat out this weekend with Vance on an awesome day on the South Shore of Tampa Bay.  After launching at EG Simmons we ran a little south to some shallow flats hoping for some trout and reds.

Super low negative tides!

After getting up on to the flat we started in a little deeper water where there was nothing going on so we eased up into some shallow water around the sand bar (and I mean shallow!) we finally started seeing some life.  We fished a few holes and finally found some fish.  The first fish we actually sight casted to and it sucked the shrimp right off the bottom 15-20ft from the boat.  After a quick fight it was in the boat for a picture.  We caught a couple more and moved holes down the sand bar.

Unfortunately, that was pretty much the end of that area since the tide probably pushed the reds up inside the bar and we didn't chase them since I had a spot in the Roach that I wanted to fish.  We ran south to CRB and we did find one snook in the back country but it was all by itself, so we ran back outside and further south towards home to try to get a boat slam on some deeper flats with a trout but it wasn't meant to be.  The boat handled great in a light chop and Vance let me jump up on the poling platform to see if I could actually make the boat go forward.  Well the view from up there is amazing but I'm going to need to practice my skills.  I'm looking forward to getting back out there.  I hope that the weather keeps holding through the winter! 75 deg days in Jan are pretty nice. 

Maybe it's time to start blogging again.  I'm going to try to document some some fishing pics and videos along with some cool events in my life.  Enjoy!