Pinellas Snapper Fishing – June 2009
Big mangrove snapper have invaded the piers, docks and structure of Boca Ciega Bay. While smaller fish are the norm inshore in June, this year some quality fish are showing up. Here’s a nice 18″ mango that was caught by a gentleman at Merry Pier on Saturday:
Fishing this weekend with Tim, who made the trip over to the beaches from Tampa, we nailed a nice limit of big mangos, to 17″. They weren’t too picky, hitting everything from frozen sardine tails to small greenbacks to freelined tomtates to live shrimp.
Overall, the fishing was pretty good. We caught 15 or 20 grouper (to 20″), along with dozens of big macks. A 23″ keeper gag grouper was pulled out from under the pier, and there were plenty of snook around once the current started running.
So, here’s blackened snapper and fried snapper…. the BEFORE shot….:
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Nice snapper! I discovered a little trick last year to land plus size snapper and mostly avoid runts! i’ll be using the same tactic in less than two weeks! it will be a snook and snapper fest!! we docked and lost a snapper last year that was every bit of 4 lbs and over 20 inches, a beast!
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:56 am
Jayt,
Awww, c’mon. What’s the trick? Big bait?
Steve
June 24th, 2009 at 8:49 am
how about you meet me at the dock one day and I’ll show you! can’t give away my secrets to all of the west coast. It took 8 years of family vacation to fine tune some of those tactics!!
June 24th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Jayt,
Deal. I’ll be at Merry Pier every weekend- unless I manage to get offshore. Just ask around for Steve.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Steve, i’ll be out there starting next friday night, i’ll be out there basically all day from early morning until around 2am from next friday night until the following friday night. we’ll get up and do some snapper slamming, its easy and it produces! hopefully my tactic will hold up this year, because it rocked last year! it also produced snook all day as well!
June 24th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Jayt,
This I’ve gotta see. And don’t forget, still plenty of grouper and macks around.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Steve i’m sure you already know, and possibly have even tried it but just didn’t stick with it. you won’t catch as many fish but it produces quality