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By LARRY HOFFMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 28, 2001
This weekend's weather should be good for offshore fishing. We boated a few blackfin tuna, small dolphin and a barracuda 60 miles offshore this week, but thunderstorms were so numerous that we had to call off fishing early.
Trolling around the USF weather buoy, 42 miles from John's Pass, did not produce fish. We caught the blackfin tuna on jet heads with black and red skirts, and the dolphin on blue and silver skirted lures. The storms offshore this week have broken up some of the near-shore weed lines, so you may need to run as far as 70-100 miles offshore to find weed lines.
Grouper and mangrove snapper fishing continue to be excellent in 80-110 feet. We have caught our biggest mangrove snapper and grouper on live Spanish sardines. We are starting our fishing early and are back at the dock just after noon. Midday summer heat has, for all practical purposes, shut down the bite during the middle of the day.
- Larry "Huffy" Hoffman charters out of John's Pass, Treasure Island. Call (727) 709-9396.