Captain’s Corner: Ed Walker

The Tampa Bay Times

By Ed Walker

Although water temperatures are still very cold, a surprise run of Spanish mackerel has appeared in same parts of the bay area recently. There were a few days that these early season macks were caught at the Sunshine Skyway Piers in good numbers although they have come and gone with the tides. Here in Tarpon Springs we have also stumbled upon schools of mackerel on the grassflats. They seem very out of place since there is very little bait and the water is cold and dirty but, on several occasions lately we have encountered 1 to 5 pound mackerel while drifting over the grass. At times they were so thick you would get a bite on every cast and other mackerel would follow the one you had hooked to the boat. Cut-offs were a problem as the following fish would bite at your connection knots or swivels.

To deal with this we started using 80 pound test fluorocarbon leader on our lures. Even then some of the bigger fish would cut our lines. Eventually we were forced to use 40 lb test wire leader to protect our lures from the sharp teeth. On our plugs we removed the front treble hook and left just one on the back end. The combination of a sinking Mirrodine with one hook and a section of wire leader ended up being our best combo and we easily caught our limit of fish on the days we found them.