Saturday morning was just beautiful; we had a big bold sun peeking through the clouds as we headed to the Skyway Bridge. Cory and Chris today's anglers were a great help gathering bait. The tide was low enough to ease my Tower boat under the bridge. It took only seconds to see we were thick in the scaled sardines. Two tosses of the cast net and the live well was blacked out! It should always be this easy as Fridays trip took 90 minutes to get bait.
We took a chance on snook on the eastern shoreline and saw only one linesider. If we tossed baits away from the Mangroves sharks, jacks and mackerel would oblige.
I decided to head to a flat that was productive for both trout and Mackerel. While this grass flat 3-5' deep is a traditional trout hole its holding good numbers of mackerel.
With very little water movement I headed to a flat with a very deep drop off and it was game on. Every bait was met with trout or mackerel and a ladyfish that had to be 5 pounds. Black tip sharks also got in the mix along with several jacks. The macks were all big over 20" and would hit like missiles.
For mackerel beef up your leaders with 30-40 pound fluorocarbon, 3' in length finished with a long shank 1/0 hook is all you need. If the bite is slow deploy a chum block and hang on.
Captain Steven Markovich
www.onthemarkcharters.com
