Sheepshead still is the main game inshore, but Spanish mackerel is a close second, as Steve and Mike Brotschul found out recently.
Fishing a rock pile close to the Sunshine Skyway bridge, the two were able to land several keeper sheeps using Asian green mussels for bait. Sheepshead are bait stealers and they can strip a mussel off the hook before an angler can react. One trick to keep the mussel on the hook is to wrap a piece of bait floss or thread around it. A small rubber band also will work.
It pays to keep your eyes peeled for any kind of activity, as was the case while the Brotschuls were landing their sheepshead. A Spanish mackerel sky-rocketed within casting distance and suddenly macks were being pulled over the gunwale as fast as the fish appeared. Using light jigs with sparkly clear shad-tail bodies proved irresistible to the mackerel. The small shad-tail bodies matched the size and color of the minnows the macks were attacking.
When a huge moving shadow caught their eye, the Brotschuls were on top of it, and turned out to be a school of big black drum that has been prowling the flats of lower Tampa Bay. Casting the same jigs they used to catch the macks, both hooked up almost immediately and the fight was on.
- Captain Rick Frazier runs Lucky Dawg Charters out of St. Petersburg and can be reached at 727 510-4376 or email captainrick@luckydawg.com
