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Superb Weather Makes For Better Fishing

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 28, 2007

November weather has been mild with light winds and sunny days through the middle of the month.

I have spent more time on the water during the past two weeks than I have in the past three months. Conditions have been perfect for the type of fishing I like best - sight casting to snook, redfish and bonnethead sharks.

Water temperature is in the high 60s, and clarity is superb. When the sun shines across the sandy bottom you can see fish a hundred yards from the boat.

I prefer artificials for this work because they cast better, and here it is more important to put the bait in the fish's face.

I have been throwing RipTide's 4-inch mullet at redfish and snook with success, and pompano jigs at everything else. I caught a bonnethead shark on a jig, but it turned out he was foul hooked.

I have a healthy new respect for bonnetheads after cleaning a fish at the dock last week.

I examined the stomach contents of a 3-foot shark and found a saucer-sized horseshoe crab that was mostly digested except for claws and gills. It also had a 3-inch blue crab in its gut. It takes a pretty rugged fish to swallow such an assortment of armored prey.

The redfish bite was good on the minus tides of the new moon but slowed to crawl as the water movement declined with the approach of the half moon. Despite near perfect conditions on the weekend, redfish were hard to find, and the bonnetheads were finicky.

The rising tide brought a big school of jack crevalles into the river, and I caught and released four 12-pound fish off my dock one evening. The following day Capt. Billy Jordan and I searched the river for them armed with fly tackle, but they were gone. They will come and go in the river until the water cools down more, then they tend to settle into the deep holes.

I cast to a pair of snook on the flats last week and hooked up with a fish that was just short. It hit a new penny plastic mullet on a half-ounce jig head. Snook season will come to an end Dec.1, not to reopen until March 1.

There are plenty of mackerel in Tampa Bay, but Capt. Danny Guarino said he couldn't get them to eat a pilchard last week.

Sometimes mackerel can get single-minded about what they will feed on. When it's glass minnows, only a glass minnow imitation will do. This month the Bay has been carpeted with schools of glass minnows. I ran across a school of the little baits in front of Big Pass last week that covered acres.

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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