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Lower Water Temperatures May Bring Better Fishing

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 3, 2007

Fall officially arrived last week and with it came a 5-degree drop in water temperature.

There is a diverse selection of bait on the flats, and fishing should get nothing but better.

That said, my inshore fishing was unusually slow for much of September. Redfish usually hunt the flats in large schools this time of year, but I have yet to see them anywhere on the South Shore of Tampa Bay.
Water clarity is good and getting better, but it has been so windy in recent weeks that sight fishing has been tough. As the surface temperature drops, the water will continue to get clearer.

This is good and bad - the clearer the water gets the easier it is for anglers to see fish, but the fish also see us better. Snook that you can see, for example, are difficult to catch. Redfish and trout are better sight fishing targets, but you still have to cast far to hook up.

The fall run of cobia should begin to show themselves on the flats. They tend to travel in pairs, with one fish being much larger than the other. The trick is to get the bait where the big fish can jump on it first. The smaller fish, however, are generally much faster and usually beat the big fish to the bait. When that happens it pays to have a second rod rigged and ready. Odds are good that the big fish will strike a lure if you can get it in his face with the smaller fish already hooked up.
Spanish mackerel are in the Bay, and I have been finding them on the north side of the ship channel in front of the Sunshine Skyway. They have been feeding on glass minnows, and they can be single-minded when eating the 2-inch baits.

Here it pays to match the hatch with something like-sized. Nothing seems to work better than a small streamer fly tied to a 50-pound monofilament leader. A quarter-ounce diamond jig with a single hook is also a good imitation of the glass minnows that the mackerel are feeding on.
Snook are beginning to stack up around the mouth of the Little Manatee River. I can hear them crashing around under the docks just before sunrise every day. There is a good crop of little pilchards in the river, and the snook are making the most of them.

I have been hoping to see some pompano on this side of the Bay, but thus far I haven't skipped any.

I fished with Jack Jenkins of Ruskin last week and idled around the flats between the Simmons Park boat ramp and Apollo Beach, but never skipped a pompano. In fact, we didn't catch anything there, or see any fish other than mullet and a single bonnethead shark. We did catch three short trout at the end of our day at the mouth of the Little Manatee River, and the usual contingent of hardhead catfish.

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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