Outdoors

Daily fishing report

By BILL HARDMAN
Published August 27, 2005

The bad news is that spearfishing is practically non-exsitent in shallow waters off the gulf coast. Red tide has killed most of the bottom life and pushed fish that are tough enough to survive out to the deeper water. The good news is that just west of St. Petersburg and Sarasota we ran into clean water in depths over 80 feet. We speared gag groupers, mangrove snappers and even sheepshead on ledges at these depths. We got a 91/2-pound spiny lobster in 90feet and two smaller lobsters in 95 feet. The visibility on some spots was as low as 15 feet, but in other areas we had visibility up to 30 feet.

The water is very warm from the surface to about 50 feet. Then a thermo-cline (temperature drop) of about 10 degrees is waiting to send a cold surge through the diver. The thermo-cline is rather refreshing and the fish seem to be more prevalent in the cooler thermo-cline waters. However, the thermo-cline does cut down the horizontal visibility.

Over the past weeks, many divers have headed to the middle grounds to do their spearfishing, and it has been productive. Most of the fish seem to be in the mid-section of the grounds, with more gag grouper catches on the west side and red grouper and hogfish on the east side. We found American reds and amberjack on the west side and mangos are everywhere.

The seas will be too high to go diving this weekend, but hopefully Hurricane Katrina will stir up the bottom and allow this red tide to move away from our coastal waters.

Bill Hardman teaches scuba, freediving and spearfishing at Aquatic Obsessions, 6193 Central Avenue, St. Petersburg, Fl. 33710. Call 727 344-3483 or e-mail bill@tampabayspearfishingclub.org

[Last modified August 27, 2005, 01:15:14]