Tarpon are here and willing to eat especially on the good tide days around the new and full moons. There is a full moon coming up on Tuesday the 17th which will make for good tides and a strong falling tide in the late afternoon which will flush bait out like crabs and shrimp. This will turn a bite on as the Tarpon feed on these free morsels that the tide is bringing to them. Also on the later outgoing tides the bridges like the Gandy and the Howard Franklin will have Tarpon in their shadow lines waiting for the bait that is flushing through. If you are using shrimp a stout pole with 30lb braid and a 40-50lb leader with a 3/0-5/0 hook (depending on the size of your shrimp) is a good set up. When fishing around the skyway or Egmont using crabs, threadfins or scaled sardines I like using 50lb braid and a 50-60lb leader to have more strength to get the fish in quicker with all the other boats around and the sharks looking for the easy meal.
Redfish can be caught in good numbers still if the tides are good and the boat pressure does not shut them down or push them out of the area that they normally feed. Live pinfish, shrimp and scaled sardines along with cut bait such as pinfish, scaled sardines, ladyfish and anything else that is oily will work. Redfish have a keen sense of smell and if you have a quite stealthy approach to the area they are in you can chum them up into a small area and catch sometimes 20-30fish but if you rush them yes you might catch a few but not the numbers you would if they were kept happy. Catches of redfish have ranged from just undersized to most being slot to oversized fish to 33 inches.
Capt. George Hastick
" The Fish Hunter "
www.fishtampa.com
727-525-1005
Tampa Bay / St petersburg Fl fishing report
Linear Mode
