Saturday was amazing, the snook bite was of the charts explosive. The day started at the Skyway Bridge at 6 am where the white bait is so thick you can walk on it. One toss of a 10' cast net and we were set, actually we had too many types of bait so I let some go as to not overfill the live well. We ran directly at the sun which was now a dull red globe on the horizon.
Today I asked my anglers to wait a minute while I toss chummies to see if we could get a read where the snook were. First several minutes nothing then Pop Pop Pop! All three anglers cast and all 3 hooked up within 30 seconds. The next 90 minutes were spectacular to say the least. Snook with redfish and trout mixed in. If you did not get bit within a few minutes chances were your bait was gone. We hooked 4 slob snook all well over 35". All 4 were lost in the mangroves at spectacular hits and runs. Watching 3 feet of snook come out of the water never gets dull.
We never moved the entire morning, by 10 am I was headed back to the marina. I went back out to do some exploring. I found 2 pods of Tarpon at Egmont Key but so did 10 other boats. Next stop was a new beach area; I was up in the tower scouting but failed to spot any. Next stop was for trout and I did find several new stops with decent action on deeper grass flats.
Looking back at the morning snook action it's a real tribute to Tampa Bay. From my first visits over 11 years ago the Tampa Bay region has truly become a first class fishery.
Capt. Steven
