Amazing best describes Captain Steven's morning. Slick, calm conditions made for a beautiful run up Tampa Bay. Today was a snook scouting day. The freeze from last winter dealt our snook population a serious blow but some fish survived. I targeted areas that were in close proximity to areas where snook had a chance to escape last winter.
Great news over 90 minutes I caught 10 snook and lost another 3 or 4. I kept each fish in the water for a quick and gentle release. No big bruisers but feisty 18-22" snook were fun to catch. I tossed white baits up into the mangroves, baits just a 1' away would be ignored. It was critical to get under the mangroves and into the shaded areas.
It was time to head back towards O'Neill's Marina as I had to pick up the Admiral aka my wife Jackie. I stopped on a grass flat I had not fished since last winter but I knew it had a nice drop from 4-10'. My first cast resulted in a 22" trout with the next cast another 20"+ trout. My next cast was heart stopping as 200 pounds of Tarpon exploded 6' in the air just 30' from the boat. Another spectacular jump and the Silver King tossed the hook. This was the largest Tarpon Captain Steven has ever hooked!
With the boss onboard I ran to my Tierra Verde hot stop. Trout and mackerel pounded my white baits over and over again. Suddenly I heard a huge commotion on the other side of the boat; it was a large shark ripping apart a Tarpon that was 40-50 pounds.
By the way gathering bait was wild! My first toss ended up with a stingray at least 2' wide in the net and was very unhappy. Bait was a real mix of huge and peanut baits.
Captain Steven Markovich
www.onthemarkcharters.com
