The Tampa Bay Times
Starting out 2023 most spearfishing enthusiasts were pleasantly surprised by the underwater visibility of early January. Before last week’s big weather and big seas, the underwater visibility was good. Just before the winds of this past weekend, visibility was good in depths from 50’ to 100’. Hopefully the turbid water will settle down and we can get back to great spearfishing conditions. Hogfish have been consistent on most of the bigger limestone structure. Strong weather fronts force many of the bottom fish, like hogfish, snappers and grouper to move to the deeper and more secure parts of the reef. If the seas are big enough to reach the bottom of the Gulf the fish will try to get out of the surging bottom and move to bigger and more secure reefs. The fish don’t like to get beat up and the bigger structure gives them proper protection. Shipwrecks offer bottom fish good protection from the surge and are very productive this time of year. Spearing with a line shaft setup is more productive around these wrecks. If the fish quickly darts back into the crevices of the wreck, after being speared, the line attached to the spear will help the diver retrieve the fish and the spear. The bottom water temperature is in the high 50s and very cold. Thick wetsuits and hoods are the normal thermal gear for these temperatures. A round beverage cooler filled with hot water from your home water heater can offer the comfort of heated water for the wetsuit between dives.
January is one of the best months to target sheepshead. Two of the best places are in the rivers and out on the nearshore rocks. In the rivers holes with lots of rock and structure are best. I use a 1/8th. jig head with a live shrimp for bait. One of my favorite sheepshead spots on the river is a dock that has two shackles that slid up and down a oyster shell pylon with the tides or big wakes. On low tides this creates a chummed are that sheepshead will feed at. Some anglers even will use a flat blade shovel to scrape a dock post to chum them. As always if it’s not your dock ask permission if your lucky you won’t have to scrape all 8 post before the owner will let you fish there.
On the nearshore rocks on most calm days you can drift over the structure and see if there are fish on it. Some days though it can be churned up with bad visibility on those day’s usually a few days after a cold front the sheepshead will bite good. High profile rocks generally have more fish. The sheepshead tend to bite well out there and a angler can get a quick feel for the bite. I usually let my fisherman know the bite will be a “peck” “peck” followed be a slow deliberate pull. When this happens set the hook. This weekend incoming tide will be at daylight in the morning.
- Jay Mastry - March 26, 2024
- Captains Corner, Gorta - March 23, 2024
- Dave Zalewski - March 12, 2024
