Outdoors

Daily fishing report

We passed the John's Pass marker Sunday morning hoping to troll for Spanish mackerel at the Madeira Beach and Treasure Island artificial reefs and kingfish at the new south county artificial reef and the nearby Betty Rose. The water at the John's Pass marker was boiling with baitfish, mackerel and birds attacking the bait. I thought about stopping, but continued with the game plan.

Sea conditions were perfect at the reefs with a slight chop. The mackerel that had been present throughout the week on the reefs were non-existent. Running the 4 miles to the Rose produced nothing. Changing tackle and trolling both the reef and the wreck produced the same big goose egg for kingfish. The kingfish run historically starts around St. Patrick's Day. I guess someone forgot to tell them.

We continued west to 60-foot depths. On every stop there were grunts, triggerfish, short red and gag grouper along with the occasional keeper gag. The reef fish fed on cut Spanish sardines, squid, live pinfish and fillets of small grunts.

On the way home we were greeted by the same scenario, with fish breaking the surface 2 miles from the sea buoy. Switching to small spoons behind a No. 1 planer and a small spoon trolled just below the surface behind a small keel sinker, we landed 20 nice-sized Spanish mackerel within half an hour. This was well below our limit considering we had six anglers on board.

-- Capt. Dave Zalewski charters the Lucky Too out of Madeira Beach and can be reached at (727) 397-8815 or by e-mail at Luckytoo2@aol.com.

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