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It's Tough To Beat The Heat, Dodge Storms While Hunting Fish

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By FRED EVERSON

Tribune Correspondent

Published: July 9, 2008

It has been seasonably hot and the water temperature is hovering in the low 90s.
Inshore fishing in shallow water becomes a low-light proposition under such conditions, and I like to be off the water before noon when I do have to fish, but that tactic hasn't played out well recently.

Despite leaving the dock at 7 a.m. and getting over to Pinellas Point a half-hour later, the trout bite was slow for two trips. Then I came back across the Bay to try for redfish on the high, late-morning tide and that bite was colder than an arctic winter.

It has been hard to fish the strong falling tides in the afternoon because of thunderstorms, but I bet that's when the fish are feeding. When it comes to dodging lightning bolts to catch a few fish, I think I will pass. I have been caught in a couple of afternoon summer storms, and I would rather not go through that experience again.

Capt. Danny Guarino told me he had better luck fishing the falling tide in the afternoon. He said the trout bite was hot, but he couldn't get a bait past bluefish and Spanish mackerel on the outside of the bar at Pinellas Point.

I did a late-morning trip last week to look for cobia and tripletail in the middle of the Bay, but even with the boat on plane every 10 minutes it was unbearably hot. These fish seem to gravitate to structure and buoys when the tide is slack.
Scaled sardines are hardly scarce, but most of the bait I'm seeing on the flats is too small to fish with. There were good-sized bait all over Pinellas Point in recent weeks, but those I have seen the last two times over were all small. I was also seeing lots of bonnethead sharks on that same flat, and they too have disappeared.
Redfish continue to be a hit-and-miss proposition. I think it has mostly to do with fishing for them in the heat of the day.

Tides for the coming week start out slow today with little movement because we are between the full moon and the new.

They will begin to pick up steam Sunday with the approach of the full moon next week. It's a two-tide day with a high at 10:27 a.m. and a big drop to the low at 7:10 p.m. This is a good tide for a number of species including snook, trout, Spanish mackerel, bluefish, jack crevalle and ladyfish.

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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