Bait is plentiful everywhere, and warm sunny days are producing outstanding fishing conditions. Macks are hammering anything moving at Merry Pier, while pompano are spotty in the Passes and the Jetty. Offshore, the bite is on fire, although current fishing regulations greatly limit what you can bring home.

Interesting sight at the Merry peir last weekend – a boat was tied up poorly overnight. The result:

Weather permitting, I’ll be spending some time on the water this weekend. The bait is now thick in Blind Pass, Pass-A-Grille, and off the beach. My buddy Mike had a nice day last weekend at the Merry Pier, catching 2 flounder, a snook, 2 redfish and a 36″ cobia!

OK, yeah, I’ve been slacking on my fishing blog. Work, out of town, under the weather… whatever. I’m back!

While weather conditions have been spectacular over the last couple months, fishing hasn’t been. Oh, sure, there are fish around. Flounder, redfish, grouper, Macks, black drum, sheepshead,  pompano… you name. But, catches have been sporadic at best. The bait moved inshore a couple weeks ago, and there are good shows in Blind Pass and at the Merry pier – big greenbacks, too. Snook have been seen hiding under the pier, but nobody’s fishing for them since they’re out of season. The pompano run in Blind Pass hasn’t really taken off yet – some days they’re there, others… not.

Won’t be long, though. With water temps moving up and bait plentiful, I have high hopes for the coming months. And, I WILL keep you posted!

A few random catches:

Cooler Full of Sheepshead

OK, time to catch up on my fishing blog. Went out in early January with Dick, Tim, and Joe. The target species was amberjack, so we headed to the surefire spot in 105 feet. First drop, first fish. Second drop, second fish. And so it went. The amberjack were big, hungry and plentiful. We tried a little bottom fishing nearby, but those pesky amberjack wouldn’t leave us alone. Joe dropped a finger size tomtate down on a size 2 hook and light spinning gear, hoping for snapper. Nope, he hooked into and landed a 30+ pound amberjack, after an epic fight.

We decided to give our backs a break, and headed for a ledge looking for grouper. As it turns out, the ledge was loaded. We nailed a bunch of 19″ red grouper, along with plenty of big gags up to about 20 pounds. See for yourself:

So, Saturday was gorgeous, upper 70’s and no wind, so I figured I’d join Miss Pass-A-Grille for the 1/2 day fishing trip. Good call! I ended up with 8 really nice grunts, which translated into a bag full of fillets. I saw tons of grunts caught, along with red grouper, gag grouper, triggerfish and porgies. If you haven’t been out on Miss Pass-A-Grille, I highly recommended it! Call ’em at (727) 367-9833 for reservations and information.

A few side notes – great company on Miss Pass-A-Grille. There is still decent whitebait to be netted at Merry Pier. Flounder have moved offshore, and sheepshead are JUST strating to show. Still a few Macks around.

So, I found myself at Merry Pier a couple Saturdays ago, and Cap’t Randy invited me out for the 1/2 day on The Miss Pass-A-Grille deep sea fishing boat. The weather was perfect – sunny and warm with calm winds. Off we went. There were about 20 others aboard, including several families – the boat is a perfect place for kids to learn how to fish. We hit several spots, and there were plenty of tasty Key West grunts in my bucket. I saw several legal red grouper caught, along with flounder and big gag grouper (which are, unfortunately, out of season). Here’s the end result of a great 4 hour trip:

The flounder run has wound down. While the fish were plentiful and hungry over Thanksgiving, they appear to have made the big push offshore to spawn. So, now we have that slow time between when the flounder leave and the sheepshead show up. There have been a few sheepies around, but they are few and far between. A few stray redfish have been caught recently, and there’s still bait at Merry Pier and the bridge at Blind Pass.

Here’s my only worthwhile catch from last weekend – an 18″ flounder that hit a whitebait:

While snook, snapper and other fish have been spotty this year, the flounder have taken center stage. With a long Thanksgiving weekend, I spent several mornings at The Merry Pier in Pass-A-Grille fishing for these tasty bottom dwellers. Flounder are ambush predators, lying on the sandy bottom waiting for prey to venture too close. They’ll take shrimp, whitebait, greenbacks, small pinfish and slow moving jigs. Saturday was a banner day, with 8 keepers, the smallest at 15″ and the largest around 22″. A few pictures:

And, of course, my brother Allen got the biggest one:

My buddy Tim nailed a 30″ oversized redfish:

With grouper season winding down, Kevin, Dick and I had planned an offshore trip for Saturday. We were going to hit wrecks and ledges for amberjack and grouper, but… Saturday morning, winds were steady from the North at 15 knots, so we decided not to chance it in a 22′ boat. We ended up fishing the islands just North of Sand Key Pass, catching trout and flounder (although the redfish remained elusive). The afternoon turned out perfect, with high 70’s and sunshine – all in all, a great day on the water.

Sunday, I hit the Merry Pier for flounder. They were cooperative! I ended up with 4 nice keepers in a couple hours using big live shrimp. They were also hitting greenbacks and root beer jigs. Between all the fisherman, I saw at least a couple dozen legal fish landed. Miss Pass-A-Grille arrived with a boatload of big grouper and Key West grunts- and that was just a half day trip!

So, the end result – 4 flounder and a pound of stone crab claws, compliments of Cap’t Dick:

Despite the windy weekend, the fish are still active and feeding in the Tampa Bay area. The recent fronts have scattered the inshore bait a bit, but flounder, grouper, redfish and sheepshead continue to cooperate. Here’s an oversized red landed at Merry Pier on Sunday:

And one of several snook Mike (from Michagan) landed on Saturday in Pass-A-Grille:

And, just for good measure, here’s a mess of Mangos and a nice amberjack that Rich and the gang nailed in the Middle Grounds:

And, while pelicans and seagulls are a year round presence at Merry Pier, an occasional Osprey shows up:

Despite the wind and rain this weekend, I managed to fish both Blind Pass and the Merry Pier. I was pleased to see the best show of bait so far in 2011- nice frisky greenbacks were EVERYWHERE! And, with the bait, come the predators. This weekend, it was Jack Cravelle. Hundreds. Thousands. OK, maybe millions of ’em. They ranged from hand sized to a couple pounds. Hook one, and hundreds of others would follow it right to the surface. They were hitting anything in the water, including bare hooks.

But it wasn’t all jacks. I managed Spanish Mackerel, ladyfish, small mangrove snapper, and even a small sea bass. The next six weeks or so should be a lot of fun.