Captain’s Corner: Dave Zalewski

The Tampa Bay Times

Dave Zalewski

460-9893

We ran our last charter on March 21 and then shut down operations because of CV19, not wishing to take the chance of spreading the virus to ourselves or our clients. Recreational fishing has been allowed and we took advantage of this to do a little scouting for the future and to get out of the house. Leaving John’s Pass we headed to the Treasure Island artificial in search of Spanish mackerel. Slowing down to a speed of 5.5 knots and putting out #1 and 2 planers, one with a 0 spoon and one with a large spoon, we experienced a double header strike as soon as we passed over a high profile structure that we had previously noted on the chart plotter. Both fish were kingfish in the 18 to 20 inch range and had to be released because they were under the 24 inch fork length minimum size. This continued with numerous double headers and a few singles. The bite was awesome, but we had to leave because of the size of the fish. The old adage “Don’t leave fish to catch fish” had to be ignored in this case.
Juvenile kingfish can be easily confused with their cousins, Spanish mackerel which have to be 12 inches at the fork to be legal. The lateral line on a king mackerel drops sharply near the dorsal fin, On a Spanish mackerel this line slopes more evenly and the front of the dorsal fin is black.
Blackfin tuna have made an impressive showing in the 60 foot and deeper depths and can be targeted in several ways. Trolling large lipped plugs or small lipped plugs behind a planer near high profile structure such as wrecks and large ledges will produce not only tuna but also some kingfish. Gold, blue and pink seem to be the best color choice. Drags must be set at the point where it is sufficient to stop the line from going out a trolling speed to prevent break offs, Slow trolling live Spanish sardines or blue runners is very effective in these same areas. Anchoring and deploying these same live baits at varying depths in the water column along with continuous chumming by use of a chum bag and chunks of frozen sardines along with pieces of any small fish caught on a sabiki while anchored should produce a tuna for those who have the patience to do so. There is now a bag limit of 2 person or 10 per vessel whichever is greater.