Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By DOUG HEMMER
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 16, 2000
This week's fishing trips have been hit-and-miss. Hard-bottom areas that were holding good numbers of kingfish last week had little to offer after the wind started blowing out of the south. Schools of mackerel and bait fish that had been everywhere suddenly were nowhere to be found.
The weekend brought a full moon and cold front that made inshore daytime fishing extremely hard. A cold front can shut down the bite a little, but when you throw in a full moon, you might as well go night fishing.
The best action was inshore with most fish being caught around deep structures. Docks, rock piles and oyster bars that had a deep drop-off nearby held snook and redfish. White bait and pinfish drew the most strikes when corked.
The fish were slow to bite, giving free-lined bait time to get wrapped up in structures. The corks would help let us know where the bait was and we could pull bait each time it got close to hang-ups. This would give the snook more time to think about eating that bait, and I believe it was the main reason we caught anything.
- Doug Hemmer charters out of St. Petersburg. Call (727) 347-1389.