Captain’s Corner: Dave Mistretta

The Tampa Bay Times

This month can  be quite interesting at times. The weather factor is the biggest concern for anglers wanting to go fishing. Water temps are as cold as they have been all winter, teetering at the 63 degree mark. Until the cold fronts stop barreling  down our way, the water will remain  extremely chilly.  Sometimes  this month can be mild, allowing anglers to have plenty of options.  Looking at our forecast this week, it seems to be a windy cold start. Keeping an eye on the weather forecast  will allow you to pick the perfect days to fish. Its extremely important during the month of February to watch the weekly forecast as its updated. 
We have been running a few shorter trips when the  weather  is nice with some decent results.  It seems like the deeper you venture west,  the more cooperative  the bottom fish will be. Traveling out to 50 plus feet is  the shallowest  we fished this week.  From that depth out, a wider variety of fish  could  be targeted. Dropping down small chunks of squid can get things going quickly.  Key West grunts  are normally the first reef fish to attack the soft smelly bait chunks. Schools of them will congregate under the boat if 2 or 3 lines are dropped with squid baits.  Blue point porgies and trigger fish will often join in after  a few minutes. Any grouper that are near by will closely watch all the commotion. As the reef fish aggressively feed on  the soft squid chunks, the bigger groupers cant resist just watching. They will swim over and grab all the baits from the small reef fish. Some of the gag groupers are huge giving clients a great tug. Season is  closed for recreational gag grouper, so a quick picture before releasing is the only option to document your great catch .     Each year we see more and more restrictions on certain species of fish. Catch and release fishing has become a large part of our business.  Some of our  busiest days  are filled with  catching and releasing big fish.  Amberjack, goliath groupers, red snapper and gag grouper are just a few of the  fish we have fun catching  and let them go swim another day.