The Tampa Bay Times
Dave Zalewski 460-9893Just like on television we got a teaser before the strong westerly winds started blowing. Spanish mackerel and kingfish started showing up in all the usual spots, not in large numbers, but enough to make it worthwhile to troll live baits and hardware along with putting a flatline out on every bottom drop. Any wind out of the southwest, west or northwest effectively puts the damper on fishing close to the beach because of the dirty water and rough sea conditions. Winds out of any easterly direction result in clean water and much calmer seas when in the lee of the land. We should not be having many more cold fronts sweeping through the area and as soon as the seas subside we will be targeting both Spanish and king mackerel starting fairly close to shore. Every entrance to the gulf is worth investigating especially on a strong outgoing tide. The predators wait in ambush to feed on shrimp, crabs and small fish that are being swept out to sea. . The tide line is often visible and the dirty water coming from the bays stands out in sharp contrast to the cleaner gulf water. The tendency is to troll in the cleaner water so that the spoons are more visible to the fish. Through the years we have found that more bites are produced by staying right on the line, with the planers and spoons just in the dirtier water.
The large party boats that braved the rough conditions have reported nice catches of Lane snapper, white grunts, porgies and hogfish in the 70 to 90 foot depths. Lane snapper can best be targeted with a 2 hook snapper rig with the sinker on the bottom using squid strips. The hogfish require a knocker rig or jig head with either a live or frozen shrimp.
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