Florida & Georgia - Any Tampa bay and off st Pete updates?

Been out of town for a few. So looking for any fishing updates off st Pete/Clearwater and in Tampa bay?

No reports here since grouperking been so slammed busy at work.Sucks cause I come here every day just to read his posts.I haven't been out in about 10 days.If weathers good maybe I'll go out friday.I will post the results.John

I don't generally post "fishing reports" but I'll throw this one out...

Last Saturday, My son and I left Ft Desoto before daylight. Picked up a full load of Threadfins at the Skyway and ran offshore to a well-known wreck in 55'. I'm sure that any of them would be about the same. Great conditions, less than 1' seas.

Not enough wind to fly a kite, which is my favorite tactic, but just drifting live baits we had SOLID action the entire time. Constant Bonito, Spanish, Cudas, Sharks and Cobia. Burned thru several packages of hooks in short order, even after adding wire traces as there were lots of little Spinner Sharks around.

My son attempted to find a Jewfish on the wreck using a Bonito head (that was all that one of the big Cuda's left us) and caught an even bigger shark instead.

Exactly the kind of trip to keep things interesting for kids. I have no doubt that we could have found some Gags if a bait had ever gotten to go deeper, but they never got the chance. We went home sore from pulling on fish. A great feeling!

We took home one Cobia for the grill that night, the perfect number for me!

-Mac

Good to hear mackerel. I haven't been out in 3 weeks and my 6 year old wants to go fishing with me offshore for the first time this weekend- I'm very excited! I may take him out around the channel and give it hell this weekend.
I'm kind of burned out on the longer runs right now.

Hey Gordo,

I'm sure you know what you're doing with your kid, but be sure and go easy. Take it from someone who did a little too much on those first trips with his. It took some "recovery time" to get him back into it again. I think it was what he thought were big waves and being in a smaller boat, more than the amount of time that did it to mine. And I really don't think it was more than a couple feet at most.

But steady action will certainly help and if you don't care what it is on the other end of the line then this is certainly a good time to go! The drags on our reels got a good workout last weekend!

I definitely want to nurse him along. I'm thinking about heading out a few miles along the channel looking for schools of Bonita or fishing some bottom spots for Grouper, Grunts, etc. He's not ready for any long trips yet and I don't want him to hate fishing or think of it as torture. Going to keep it to 10 miles max and only if conditions are perfect.

I definitely want to nurse him along. I'm thinking about heading out a few miles along the channel looking for schools of Bonita or fishing some bottom spots for Grouper, Grunts, etc. He's not ready for any long trips yet and I don't want him to hate fishing or think of it as torture. Going to keep it to 10 miles max and only if conditions are perfect.

Sounds like a good plan.

For whatever it's worth, I never saw any Bonito schools at all, or really any breaking fish schools at all. And I did cross the channel. Even over the wreck everything appeared dead, but it was far from it.

The water in the area that you are thinking about is fairly "green" as expected from all the runoff and there is a lot of sargassum floating around, from the extended west wind that we had a while back, so trolling is not a very good option.

Good Luck!

Mac

Thanks for the info guys.

If you dive the visibility past 60' is essentially top to bottom. Gag grouper are plentiful in areas 60' and deeper as well. Amberjack are pretty easy to come by as well this time of year. Large schools of bonito have been slamming glass minnows offshore, they are always fun to catch on light tackle. Sea's have been glassy and the clear water equates to possibly downsizing tackle and making use of fluorocarbon leaders to maximize your hook up rates. Red grouper in good numbers have been in the 70-90' range, don't go too deep or you will get nothing but big ARS that you have to throw back. The 100' - 110' range is about your limit before ARS get too out of hand. This is all out of the clearwater area, I've been out six times in the past three weeks spearfishing. By the way if anyone does dive past 110' be sure to keep an eye out for and kill the lionfish you see. We saw and killed a 18'' lion two weeks ago, its almost scary to see how big some of these fish are getting so quickly, be prepared for them. Good luck and tight lines!