Tampa Bay and Surrounding Waters

August 13th, 2008

Tampa Bay Redfish, Snook & Tarpon bite still HOT

Redfish are starting to school up on the right tides and seem to be hungry. Live and cut pinfish seem to be working well as decent size whitebait is a hard commodity to come by right now. The reds don't appear to be opposed to a top water Mirr-O-Lure in the morning, either. But, the dead grass we get in the summer makes hard baits difficult.

The tarpon bite is still going fairly strong. Live bait fishing remains an option with small live pinfish and larger threadfin topping the list of baits. Also, plenty of sightcasting artificials to be done for the chrome ones.

The snook fishing remains en fuego (on fire)!! Bridges and beaches holding some really big girls that are suckers for a large pinfish, grunt, mullet or ladyfish. The night time bite has also been off the hook!

Best of the rest... Still plenty of spanish mackerel around. Find the bait, find the spannies! Trout fishing remains consistent in 3-6 feet of water over healthy grass. The mangrove snapper bite is absolutely off the hook everywhere in the bay. And, there is some inshore grouper to be had.

Tight Linez!

Tampa Bay Fishing Forecast:

As of right now, the fall is setting up to be absolutely OFF THE HOOK!!! With all the bait around now, it appears that the fall fishing, which is normally great, will be even better this year. We'll have to wait and see if my predictions are right. Be looking for good reports of redfish and speckeled trout from the inshore scene along with kingfish and grouper numbers increasing off the beach.