Tampa Bay June Fishing Report
Gees, glad to see that tropical storm get on its way. It milled around way to long. Anyhow Tarpon fishing had been great up until the storm rolled into town. After 4 days off due to winds I will be back out there tomorrow fishing again. I had some really great days on Tarpon right before the storm, hooking up to 15 a day before so I figure a few days of light winds and we should be right back at it. It may be a blessing really, cooling the water temps may extend our Tarpon fishing till the end of July. It's happened before so we will see.
It has been a very productive Tarpon season so far despite the volatile water conditions. I spent lots of ruff days this past season chasing Tarpon, but because we had such large numbers of fish it made sense to stay out there and stick with the Tarpon. I had one day where it was rolling so hard it was hard to stand up in the boat but we still managed 30 Tarpon hooked up in the morning and 4 or 5 on my afternoon trip. That's a lot of Tarpon jumping around for one day of fishing.
One thing I really like, about July Tarpon fishing, is the light winds. Generally unless we have something like we had this past week you can depend on some calm conditions in July.
Though tarpon makes up 98 percent of my fishing this time of year we have been on the flats a few days as well. We have done very well on Snook averaging 20 or 30 a trip. The largest ones have been around 32 inches, but we did lose a couple weeks ago at the edge of the boat that looked to be a true 40 incher. That's a really big Snook these days.
Red Fishing has been ok and most of the Reds we have caught are mixed in with the schools of Snook we have been fishing. Most of them are nice keepers in the 20 to 26 inch class.
Trout are out in the deep summer grass areas as usual for this time of year. There are plenty of keepers available with some nice Mackerel mixed in.
Cobias have been a nice bonus; I had a few nice keepers while Tarpon fishing last week, the largest about 35 to 40 pounds. Oh yes, we have been getting a few nice Gag Grouper mixed in while Tarpon fishing, a few around 30 inches.
Well that pretty much sums it up. I think we are going to backwater fish tomorrow, after that I plan to be Tarpon fishing again.
Capt. Matt
www.CaptainMatt.com
941-447-9888
