Captain’s Corner: Ed Walker

The Tampa Bay Times

By Ed Walker

Last weeks huge cold front caused all manner of disruption offshore. While blustery cold fronts in the winter are normal here, this one was much stronger than the norm The weather buoy offshore registered seas of 20 feet high. That’s 6-8 feet taller than typical fronts. Huge seas closer to shore wreaked havoc on the stone crab fishery. Thousands upon thousands of traps were displaced and dragged all over the place. Some are being found more than a mile from where they were placed and countless others will never be found. Horse conchs and sea urchins washed up on the beaches for miles indicating that the intense wave energy reached all the way to the bottom.

On our first return to offshore waters we were surprised to find the water dirty 60 miles offshore in 125 feet of water. This is highly unusual. As far as we traveled to the west it is still stirred up and dirty from the massive storm. With perhaps 6 feet of visibility at the surface, it likely its near zero on the bottom. We found the bottom fishing action to be slow in these conditions. We grinded out some red grouper and mangrove snapper but it was far from what it should have been in the area. We never got a bite on a live pinfish. The fish we did catch were all caught on dead bait soaked on the bottom for a long time. So, if you are headed out soon, try each spot a little longer than you usually do and give the fish time to follow the scent trail of your bait since they cant see very far at the moment.