Captain’s Corner: Jay Mastry

The Tampa Bay Times

This weeks cold front… although short lived is going to help kick start a kingfish migration that’s needed a little push.  In spite of the warmer than desired water temperature, just before last weekends blow, some kings had settled in along our gulf beaches within a couple miles of shore.  Westerly winds pounded the beach, churned up the bottom and muddied the water.  Huge schools of bait that had come ashore scattered and took the kings with em’.  With an easterly wind pattern forecasted the next several days, look for our near shore waters to cleanse and draw the bait back in.  This little mild front and those to follow will gradually drop the water temperature into the coveted 70’s and push increased numbers of kings our way.  Tuesday, on a mission to assess conditions, I was pleasantly surprised to find clean water and an abundance of bait at both fishing piers on Fort Desoto .  Cast-netters were getting all the assorted size baits they wanted off the Gulf Pier and other were jiggling them up on gold hook rigs.  There only a short time during the outgoing tide, I observed a few mackerel, ladyfish and blue runners get caught.  A few anglers I spoke to implied there was a better bite first thing in the morning.  Wednesday morning on a trip to the beach at Blinds Pass there were still some rollers crashing on the beach.  The water in the swash was dirty but already improving when you scanned the horizon.  I’m bettin’ on a big improvement by the weekend.

Captain Jay Mastry