 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Daily fishing report
By RICK FRAZIER What do you like? Red drum, speckled trout, tarpon? Maybe grouper or king mackerel? Everything is biting. But redfish and kingfish tournaments will make the water more crowded this weekend, and more effort is needed to be successful. King mackerel will steal the show this time of year. The main shipping channel from the whistler buoy out to the Sunshine Skyway is a great place to start. The Betty Rose and Ten Fathom Wreck west of Pass-a-Grille have held fish. So has the Short Jack west of Bradenton. Don't overlook the St. Petersburg Beach or Treasure Island artificial reefs either. The hardest part of catching a king is finding lively bait, and that may be a problem during a tournament. Take big-lipped plugs and spoons in case live bait is hard to find. For tarpon, look to the Gandy Bridge at night. Tarpon have rolled there for a while and have been caught. Freelined pinfish, sardines and threadfins are great baits, and dead shad fished on bottom also attract bites. Grouper action is heating up closer to shore as the water warms. Reds and gags have been caufht in the 40-foot range. Live pinfish, blue runners, threadfins and cut frozen sardines have worked. Frozen squid works but not as well as a frisky bait or sardine. It's a good idea to take a chum block. Redfish are on the flats near mangrove shorelines. Probe with a gold spoon until you find a few and try a corked pinfish to really get the bite going. Whitebait or scaled sardines work but are too delicate to cast repeatedly. Huge speckled trout are on the flats as well. The big females are mixed in with smaller males. A simple float-and-jig combination is more effective than whitebait, because the rig allows you to cover more water. Use the lightest jig head you can, and dress it with a plastic worm or slug tail. Holographic patterns and the old standby root beer work well. For landlocked anglers, Spanish mackerel are great around most of the piers. Silver spoons are deadly, as are weighted plugs with a lot of flash. Mackerel are fast and they like fast baits, so crank an artificial as fast as you can without bringing it out of the water. Party or head boats have caught sea bass, Key West grunts and decent grouper and snapper. The better catches are on the extended-stay trips. -- Capt. Rick Frazier runs Lucky Dawg Charters out of St. Petersburg and can be reached at (727) 510-4376 or by e-mail at captrick@luckydawg.com. Fishing (All phone numbers begin with 727 unless noted) TUESDAY: Spring Hill Fishing Club meeting, Senior Citizens Hall, Susan Drive, Weeki Wachee, (352) 592-8688. THURSDAY: Saltwater Fly Fisherman monthly meeting, Clearwater, 443-5000.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times Outdoors page
From the AP | |||||||||||||||||
