Manatee River, Tera Ceia Bay, Tampa Bay

July 21th, 2008  Tampa Bay area fishing report

Summertime fishing in the Bay!

It’s summertime in Florida!  We Floridians know what that means…the rainy season.  One thing you can count on in the summertime in Florida is rain.  Hey… at least it cools you off.  Despite the rain, the fishing has been outstanding..  This year has been a bit different than ones in the past.  One thing that has been different is that we have had a heck of a time with bait.  There is more bait than any fisherman would want, but it is small.  That is one of the great things about fishing with a guide –they are the ones working hard to catch bait.

             The snook fishing has stayed pretty steady.  We had a few days last week where the snook were biting so well that they almost jumped in the boat.  The biggest tip for snook fishing this time of the year is finding fish where there is moving tide so that you can get them to bite.  Even if you find the right tide, it can still be difficult because you have to get the tide moving in the direction that the fish you found like.  I have found some fish that like the incoming tide better and others that wouldn’t bite until the tide was going out.  This time of the year I usually do better on the outgoing tide because the fish are usually pushing out of the edge of the flats or areas where they spend there time on the high tides.  We did get to do something different this past week.  We went night fishing for the great Snook.   As you can see in the picture, we did catch a nice fish.

            The tarpon are still around.  There are a few fish off the beaches, and of course, there are fish in Tampa Bay.  Most of the fishing that I have been doing has been in the bay around the Skyway Bridge.  There is still a number of fish in the Bay.  These fish are all different sizes.  They range anywhere form 20 lbs to over 150 lbs.  Last week we jumped some of these smaller tarpon around the bridge.  It almost made me want to drop down in tackle size and have more fun with some of the smaller fish.  You know how that goes about the time you do that you will be using 10 lb test and hook a 100 pounder. 

            We have had some great redfish days over the last couple of weeks.  It’s a great thing to see some of these fish show back up.  The last couple of months we managed to catch a few fish, but for the most part, it has been a little slower when it comes to the red rally.  Redfishing is just going to keep getting better over the next couple of months.  We had some of the best redfishing that I’ve seen in a while last fall.  With all the bait that is around, this fall should be just as good.  We had another redfish tournament last weekend in which we caught a number of fish.  Most of the fish we caught were 28 inches to 33 inches.  The fish we needed to take to the scale was 18 inches to 27 inches.  Most of the fish we caught were out of the slot, but we did have some nice fish that won us second place in the tournament and the biggest fish award.  Please visit www.castawaychartersinc.com and book your trip today!

Capt. TJ Stewart
Castaway Charters, Inc.
5616 41 Ave. East
Bradenton, FL 34208
Phone: 941-737-5985
Email: CaptainTJStewart@yahoo.com
Website: http://castawaychartersinc.com/