Captain’s Corner: Dave Zalewski

The Tampa Bay Times

 Dave Zalewski 460-9893

Columbus Day (October 10) is traditionally the start of our fall kingfish. The kingfish have not arrived in force yet with scattered catches being made. The good news is that their smaller cousins, Spanish mackerel have shown up in great numbers. The mackerel that we have been catching are much larger than average with many of them being 20 to 22 inch fork length. They can be found near the mouth of any entrance to the Gulf of Mexico especially on an outgoing tide which sweeps small minnows, shrimp and crabs out of the bays. We always start our trolling with #1 planers and small spoons before we enter the gulf as soon as the water reaches 10 feet in depth usually continuing to the marker which denotes the entrance to the pass. If little or no action is encountered the next stop will be one of the near shore artificial reefs such as Madeira Beach or Treasure Island. The permitted area of these reefs are 2000 feet long by 300 feet wide with piles of concrete culvert and other debris scattered all over the area. The published GPS numbers are for the center of each reef. There are times when the entire reef may be alive with mackerel, but most days only some of the structure may be harboring fish and bait. We try to make several passes over the reef and when a strike occurs, marking the spot with the MOB on the GPS allows us to return back to where the strike occurred,
Red grouper season has been closed until January 1 but there are plenty of desirable species to target when bottom fishing. Lane and vermillion snapper, white grunts and porgies are plentiful in the 70 to 80 foot depths for those willing to forego heavy grouper tackle and switch to spinning tackle and 3/0 hooks on a 3 ounce knocker rig, Put out a dead or live sardine on a flat line for the large mackerel or kingfish that will be attracted to the action of these fish being caught