Outdoors

Daily fishing report

By ED WALKER
Published June 7, 2006

A big event will take place on the water next week. The infamous full moon this month will occur June 11. This lunar period creates extreme high and low tides that trigger a mass movement of creatures both large and small.

It is the exodus of thousands of small "pass crabs" from the bay to the gulf that will cause the most excitement. Late in the afternoon, when the outgoing tide reaches its lower stages, large numbers of these small crustaceans ride the current to offshore waters. When the crabs are really flowing, hundreds of thousands funnel through the passes and inlets along the coast.

As the crabs make this treacherous journey, they are intercepted by a wide variety of gamefish. Tarpon are perhaps the best known of the crab crunchers. They can be found gorging themselves along tide rips and anywhere a convergence of currents push the floating pass crabs together.

The Egmont Channel and Skyway Bridge are not the only such spots. Closer to the shoreline, snook, redfish, sheepshead, pompano permit and cobia also line up to capitalize on the easy meals. In many of the smaller passes, swarms of snook will be sipping crabs from the surface.

This is perhaps the only time crabs will be the best bait choice for linesiders. For nearly all the species that join this natural feeding frenzy, drifting a freshly dipped pass crab freelined with the tide is the hands-down best method of presentation.

Ed Walker charters out of Tarpon Springs. Call 727 944-3474 or e-mail info@lighttacklecharters.com

[Last modified June 7, 2006, 02:00:17]