Captain’s Corner: Dave Zalewski

The Tampa Bay Times

Dave Zalewski 460-9893

The northward migration of Spanish and King mackerel is getting stronger every day. For the past weeks we have been finding them at scattered locations with no consistency. Each day we are seeing more and more baitfish entering the area both deeper on the sonar and visually on the surface. The old adage “ Find the bait and you will find the fish” is holding so true. When trolling hardware on an artificial reef and bait does not show on the bottom machine after a short time generally there will be no fish there and it is time to move to another location.
Our best king and mackerel catches have occurred by deploying one or two stinger rigged flatlines while bottom fishing in the 42 to 60 foot depths. A frozen Spanish sardine often is the best choice for a bait as it will usually sink about half way to the bottom. Chumming with small pieces of sardine or other small trash fish caught while bottom fishing will serve two purposes. The first is to attract the pelagic fish into striking range where they will see the flatline bait. The second is to bring the bottom fish to the boat from all directions. When chumming, one must be aware of the offshore currents. We restrict chumming when the tide is running strong as not to draw the fish away from the boat.

Bottom fishing for white grunts, red grouper and Lane snapper, with an occasional mangrove snapper has been consistent in the 60 to 80 foot depths. We always carry a variety of baits as there are days when one bait will out perform another. Live pinfish, frozen squid, sardines and shrimp all produce well .