Snook

The snook bite was good again this past week, but we did see a decrease in the size of the snook hanging around the jetties, bridges and passes. Most of the larger snook seem to be cruising further back into the bays. The biggest snook caught around our area were around the residential canals and further back in the bays, intercostal and around the mouth of the bayous and rivers. The best artificial baits this week around our area was the smaller paddletail artificials and the DOA terror eyes. The best color seemed to be white to get the fish ready to eat. However, the flairhawks are always a go to for many local snook fisherman who did well on the snook and grouper with those unique jigs. Snook love the pigfish too, but big live shrimp will work too!

Redfish

Redfish bite was going well this past week as well, not quite as active as the snook but many were caught. They are like snook in the fact that this time of year they start moving back into the bays, bayous, canals and river mouths to hide from the weather that is brought in with the cold fronts. Many of the redfish were caught on the flats, mangrove shorelines, oyster bars and residential canal docks this past week. This is a great time of year for wade fishing the flats for redfish because as the winter progresses and waters get cooler they get shallower and slower moving and the tides get bigger with lower tides than normal making wade fishing access easier.

Speckled Seatrout

Trout bite is hot as the waters cool! They really are fired up from the passes to the bridges to the flats to the canals and everywhere in between. I love to target them at night around the residential dock lights or bridge lights in the passes. However, during the day the grass flats and docks produce plenty of speckled trout too. My favorite bait is always the DOA shrimp or a live shrimp or greenback for the trout bite. The edges of the flats or potholes is a great place to spot the bigger fish. Also, typically trout are very aggregated in an area so if you find one there’s typically a few more in the same general vicinity.

Sheepshead

Sheepshead bite is picking up around the area now too. As the waters continue to cool the sheepshead will pick up more and more around the bridges, jetties, piers, docks and other structure that holds the barnacles, oysters and crabs they are looking to eat. These guys are fund to catch, great to eat, but hard to clean as they are fairly boney and their bones are very tough to cut through. However, some lighter 20lb floro leader and a 2ot hook with a small piece of shrimp, fiddler crab, cut oyster or clam is a great way to target them. It’s very similar to hogfish tactics near shore you want the least amount of tackle and least amount of weight possible and you want to fish as close to where they are feeding as possible. They feed right on the pilings or rocks or seawalls so you want your bait right in that area to get that bite and they have a harder mouth so the hookset can be challenging but lots of fun!

Flounder

Flounder bite is starting to pick up, but still pretty slow overall through the area. However, the sandy pockets of the flats, sandy drop offs in the passes and around the sandy areas adjacent to structure will start holding these great eating bottom dwellers more and more. They love to ambush passing bait as it crawls along the bottom so the trick is ‘popping’ the lrue just along the bottom creating little puffs of sand to attract their attention, or using bare minimal weight to get your shrimp, greenback or mud minnow down to the bottom. Definitely the BEST live bait around for big flounder is that unique ‘mud minnow’ they are similar in shape to a snook but have vertical black lines like a sheepshead and can be found in the back bays on the muddy shorelines like the estuaries or inland islands.

Mangrove Snapper

Mangrove snapper still around the piers, docks, bridges, and rock piles inside and around Tampa Bay. These guys are going to get less and less aggressive and aggregated as our waters cool so make sure to take advantage of the bite while it’s going on!

Gag Grouper

On the flipside, the gag grouper bite is going VERY WELL around the bay and inside the passes on the rocks, bridges, docks and especially the skyway fishing piers. These guys move in shallow as our waters cool and they are definitely in the bay with some force. We are seeing guys catching them on the live pinfish or using the flairhawk jigs around the bridges, docks and fishing piers. These inshore shallow water gags are aggressive feeders and hard fighters and can be a real challenge to get out of the rocks before they bust your leader in the structure.

Cobia

Cobia are on the beaches, in the passes and all around the bay moving between the bridges, markers and other structures holding the bait. These guys are mainly sight fished from tower boats or happened upon by lucky anglers targeting the triple tail or other fish around the flats or markers. Keep your pitch rod ready with an eel style artificial or a bare hook to tail hook a pinfish on if you see one of these great eating fish swim past. The flair hawk jigs work for the cobia too, but you have to overcast them quite a bit to ensure you don’t spook them with the heavily weighted jig head. I love a ½ or even ¼ ounce jig head with a plastic dark colored bass worm rigged on it for the cobia sight casting.
Triple tail are all over the bay and beaches on the markers, buoy, bridges and floating debris. Great time to go get out there and cruise the bay looking for these guys and cobia up on the surface. Triple tail love live shrimp on lighter tackle casted right near the structure or debris they are sitting under, however, like the cobia make sure not to spook them while presenting them your bait.