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Light winds, Sunny Skies, Warm Water Make For Good Fishing

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 19, 2007

Updated: 12/17/2007 07:44 pm

It doesn't feel much like Christmas, but for local anglers that's a good thing. Temperatures continue to reach into the 80s, and water temps hover around 70 degrees - about 10 degrees above normal on both counts.

Tom Rinehart of Apollo Beach said he went offshore in good weather and caught a mess of grunts and short grouper. He said he got rocked by one big fish but couldn't drag it out of its hole.
Water clarity is as good as it gets, and sight-fishing opportunities abound on the South Shore flats. Long casts with large, live shrimp on light tackle will catch a number of species, including snook with the water this warm. Snook are a catch-and-release proposition on the West Coast since the season closed Dec. 1.

One fishery does not benefit from this prolonged spell of warm water.

For there to be an abundance of cobia in Tampa Bay during the winter months we need a sudden and prolonged drop in water temperature before Thanksgiving. When that doesn't happen, they simply migrate, and I suspect that's what happened this year.

The warmer water has also kept bonnethead sharks from bunching up on the flats as they usually do in the winter months. There are a few fish around, and these are bigger sharks. I also saw a few blacktips on my last trip. Blacktips are great fighters, and they call for wire leaders, where the bonnetheads do not.

I am also seeing quite a few flounder while poling across the sandbars south of the Little Manatee River mouth. I had two fish take jerk baits last week, and they hung onto them all the way back to the boat, then let go just as I reached for the net. Best bet for flounder would be a lure with less space between the point of the hook and the tail of the lure. A pompano jig is perfectly suited to the short-striking flat fish.

Light winds, sunny skies and warm water through much of December makes for excellent fishing. There is still some bait on the flats and on the range markers in the middle of the Bay, along with Spanish mackerel, so South Shore anglers should have a Merry Christmas this year.

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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