Tampa & Pass-A-Grille Fishing Guide

The Merry Pier in Pass-A-Grille provided some great fishing this weekend. Plenty of variety, steady action… and the Pier was surprisingly uncrowded for Memorial Day wwekend.

Snapper- The snaps are back! After a long hiatus, the mangrove snapper are beginning to return to their haunts in the shadows under the Pier. It’s still very early in the season, so they’re running small; but still, out of a couple dozen, there were some foot long specimens. They’ll be joing me for dinner tonight!

Snook- Now that the snook season has shut down, the snook are ready to feed. They key was large, lively shrimp free-lined under the dock as the tides surged outward. The snook tended to be in the shallows, with some literally inches from the seawall. Sizes ranged from about 22″ to over 30″. And, for each snook caught, there were 2-3 that were lost- hey, that’s snook fishing!

Grouper- The grouper bite was slow, but I did manage to pull out a couple of 13-14″ gags from the rocks in the front of the dock. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a legal grouper landed in Pass-A-Grille.

Mackeral- Yeah, there’re still hanging around. Not big schools, but a fish here and a fish there. Seems now that the Macks are running a little bigger than ususal, too. Just wait till the greenbacks come in.

Sheepshead- Yeah, you heard right. Sheepshead. Just when you thought they’d all departed for the summer, I managed to pull a 14″ one from among the Mangos. It was released unharmed.

Trash Fish- Rounding out the mix are the ususal undesireables, including sand perch (aka squirrelfish), pinfish (some actually pretty big), cowfish, etc.

Still too windy for offshore, although the Getaway did go out on a half day and returned with 2 scamp, a gag, and a very healthy mangrove snapper. Maybe later today….

So, on Saturday I headed over to my friend Walter’s dock in Treasure Island for a little fishing and drinking. Tossing live shrimp into the channel produced immediate results, and surprising variety. One cast would be a Jack Cravelle; the next a mangrove snapper; and the next would be a big ladyfish. So it went… lane snapper, pinfish, catfish, you name it. We scraped some barnicles and dropped live fiddler crabs next to the dock, which produced a huge hookup, and a broken 20 lb test leader. Blak drum? Big sheepshead? Who knows, hopefully it’ll still be there next trip.

Sunday… was a bust. Spent several hours on teh East end of Corey Avenue in St. Pete Beach, in pursuit of the elusive sheepshead. They were there, alright. Every 30 minutes or so, I’d get a bite… with either no hookup, or a breakoff. Very frustrating. At least the weather was cooperative (wind was brisk, but not as bad as Saturday). Dophin and manatees were nearby. Just no fish!

If you can believe the 7 day forecast, looks like the winds may finally lay down next weekend. If that’s the case, I’m gonna track down a boat, and get offshore.

 

Made a quick stop this morning at Blind Pass (by Woody’s Restaurant in St. Pete Beach). There was a commotion in the pass, with a strong incoming tide. At first I thought it was a school of dolphin, but…no it was a pod of about a dozen 50-80 pound tarpon rolling away. Looks like the tarpon have arrived a little early in Tampa this year. Time to catch ‘em up!

 

Despite the hazy, smoky conditions, I hit the East end of Corey Avenue on Saturday with my friend Tim, looking for sheepshead, snook and macks. I did manage two out of three- with no sign of snook. Got a bizzare fish- it looked like a sheepshead/ pinfish cross. That was a first! Also, out on the grass flats, something big and fast grabbed my Gotcha lure, but it managed to throw the hook.

Sunday was more of the same, starting on Corey (pinfish and a nice Mac), then moving to Pass-A-Grille (sheepshead… small ones, though). I am definately needing to get offshore soon…!

Got in a few hours both Saturday and Sunday- nothing spectacular, just steady action. The spanish mackarel were cooperative, as were both large and small Jack Cravelle. There were a few sheepshead around, but they weren’t biting. I hooked a monster snook under the dock, but it made short work of my 20 lb. SpiderWire. Interesting, on the Merry Pier in PassAGrille, I caught several 12 – 15 inch gag grouper. Wonder where they’ve been all winter?

Looks like, weather permitting, next weekend could be some serious action. I’ve got several friends that’ll be in town, all wanting to go fishing. And I saw pictures from the Getaway – their trip Friday yielded an amazing catch of red and mangrove snapper, scamp, red grouper and gags.

A few quick observations:

-At the east end of Corey Avenue in St. Pete Beach, bait is beginning to show on the grass flats and around the old Leverock’s dock. I saw a school of a few dozen 10-15 pound Jack Cravelle tearing them up yesterday, while a pair of large snook came in and cleaned up the leftovers.

-Blind Pass is showing signs of life. Between 73rd Avenue and 79th Ave., I’ve seen snook, a few large schools of mackarel, abundant sheepshead, and today, for the first time in many months, a mangrove snapper.

-The Pass-A-Grille Jetty has been producing pompano, sheepshead, and a few macks. No great catches, but a few nice fish.