Tampa Bay’s South Shore

February 29th 2008

Lots of wind followed by a strong cold front made for tough fishing on Southshore Tampa Bay midweek. I did get out in my canoe one day early in the week, and found some redfish on a mid morning minus tide off Sand Key. I caught a 26-inch redfish on a Rip Tide jig rigged with their 4 inch white plastic mullet, and it was full of fight.

Water temperature was 69 degrees at the time, and that is about just about perfect for mid February. Right after I caught the fish the wind picked up and I turned around to head back to the dock. What took 20 minutes to get where I was fishing took 2 ½ hours to get back to the dock because of the wind. Even in less than a foot of water the wind about tipped the canoe over twice.

On Thursday I fished the Bahia Beach Reef with Capt. Tom Rinehart of Apollo Beach. We caught a half dozen sheepshead, a couple of grunts, a mangrove snapper, and a Spanish mackerel – all on live shrimp. I had heard that there were still mackerel in the bay, and we had several other hits that were clearly macks, and saw one leap out of the water.

The recent cold front pushed the water temperature in the bay back down to 64 degrees. Water clarity on the flats was not as cloudy as is was in the middle of the bay, so we searched the flats between Simmons Park and Symphony Isles for bonnethead sharks but saw only a few. There were lots of rays, and a few ballyhoo, but little else.

Saturday morning I canoed over to Sand Key on a very low tide and caught a redfish, a snook, and a keeper sized flounder on Rip Tide soft plastics.

You can visit the captain’s website at Tampabayfishingguide.com for charter info, or phone him at 813 830 8890.