Captain’s Corner: Ed Walker

The Tampa Bay Times

By Ed Walker

Spring brings local anglers plenty of great fishing opportunities. Inshore action picks up, nearshore can be great (if the red tide is not present) and offshore fishing is also good. So how do you decide which option to take? If are looking for best eating fish you can find, the answer for me is going to be the delicious scamp.

Scamp are less common members of the grouper family that live in deeper water. Here in the Tampa Bay Area they are usually found between 140 and 250 feet depths.  We find most of them on low but rocky hard bottom patches, often mixed in with other species. One of the peculiarities of scamp is their preference for small baits. Normally when you think of grouper species you think big bait but not with these guys. Skip the jumbo pinfish and find one that’s 2-3 inches long. You may even need to downsize your hook to a 6/0 and use a leader of 50-60 pound test to make the smaller bait look appealing.

Although they may be encountered just about anywhere it is deep, our best scamp catches typically come from the waters near The Elbow, 65 miles off of St. Petersburg. It is unusual to catch a lot of scamp on one spot, 3 or 4 would be considered noteworthy. Most of the time you will get just one or two. Another thing that’s helpful to know is that scamp do not move around much. If you catch them, it is unlikely you can go back to the same spot and get them again the next week, so keep looking for new spots all the time.