Last Updated on February 23, 2011 by Capt. Jason
What an awesome week! Temps in the high 70’s, water’s warming up and the bite is on! I’m back in my camo shorts and Croc sandals; chasin’ down the fish for you guys. Lovin’ it!
First few stops this week were in Tarpon Springs and New Port Richey. The early morning bite was slow each day but turned on as the sun warmed up the waters. We had a nice school of really big trout penned up on a shallow flat all to our selves for a few days and my clients had a blast catching them on shrimp and Mirr-O-Lure soft plastics. The fish in this school averaged 20″ and we got some as big as 26″. They were gator trout! Then the last day in the New Port Richey area we hit the mother load on trout. We hit one spot that produce a trout on every other cast for 2 solid hours. Though we didn’t get any real monsters in this group. The smallest was 17″ but most were right around the 18-20″ range. unfortunately, we couldn’t keep them at this spot because the season doesn’t open on them in New Port Richey until March first but I believe they’ll be there come opening season up there for them in a few days.
Today we hit St. Petersburg. What a blast! The fish have shown up in mass. The warmer water has brought the bait in and in turn, the fish have followed. We started the day wearing out the spanish mackerel on a fly rod, then we caught a HUGE black drum and finished the day wearing out the trout again.
Redfish are showing up in good numbers in both the Tarpon Springs and St. Petersburg areas and fish up to 7 lbs have been caught this week. Look for the redfish fishing to get even better as our best two months of the year (March and April) are at our doorstep.
It’s time to fish guys. The weather has been awesome for a week now and it’s foretasted to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Sun, fun, fish…. what more can you ask for?