Light winds and calm seas over the weekend provided opportunity for anglers to venture as far offshore as they cared to go in search of the coveted American red snapper. You can get some shallower, but around here much of the offshore crowd will tell you 120 ft. deep and beyond is where the big boys live. Are you without the way or means to safely navigate out to the triple digit depths? Not a problem. The American cousin, mangrove snapper are abundant much closer to home and in my opinion just as good to eat. Saturday, fishing the edge of the ships channel several miles inside the Skyway Bridge we caught all the ‘mangos’ we wanted. Grouper, mackerel, flounder and a 28 lb. cobia rounded out our by-catch. Much of the bait that has settled on the flats inside Tampa Bay are juvenile greenbacks. They are fragile and don’t live well, particularly when dropped down 40 ft. to the channels edge. Time gathering the much heartier whitebait will be well spent. Tarpon fishing may have seemed to taper a bit following the fast action of last weeks full moon. Savvy anglers know that a change of tactics may be required to stay on em’. This time of the season, big knots of tarpon will roam around in Tampa Bay . They’ll come and go and may not stay long in each place but I’d take a look at Port Manatee, the Bootleg and the old Westinghouse hole.
Captain Jay Mastry
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