Calm seas and light winds have produced great fishing and diving in the Gulf of Mexico. Water clarity is as good as it is going to get, and warming waters make it possible to dive comfortably.

New diving and fishing spots can be found in water as deep as 60 feet by observing changes in color when the sun is high. Hard bottom and cloud shadow look similar to the casual observer. Both appear as dark spots in the water. If you enter a shadow over the spot, that is the likely cause of the darkness.

At this time of the year, have several rods and reels ready. On a recent trip to hard bottom in 90-foot depths west of John's Pass, we anchored above a small hump of limestone bottom and were immediately surprised by two keeper red grouper caught on frozen sardines. For the next 10 minutes only bare hooks came up. It was obvious from the staccato bites that snapper were getting to the baits before any grouper. Switching to spinning rods and downsizing the sinkers to 2 ounces and the hooks to 2/0 helped catch several large mangrove snapper. A school of small dolphin showed up beneath the boat, and it took seconds to get small slivers of chum into the water and replace the snapper rigs with single long-shanked 2/0 gold hooks. The dolphin were eager to seize the small pieces of sardine on the hooks after they ate the chum. We also lost a large kingfish on a flat line deployed behind the boat.

- 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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