Captain’s Corner: Jay Mastry

The Tampa Bay Times

As tarpon fishing goes, Junes’ full moon was as advertised.  Late afternoon ripping tides, a crab flush with all you could want and plenty of fish.  Unfortunately heavy storms, gusty winds and at times torrential downpours prevented many from getting in on the action.  Those able to dodge the foul weather or fish through it were rewarded, some with multiple hook-ups while drifting crabs through the passes on either end of Egmont Key and the Skyway Bridge .  There’s going to be plenty of tarpon around between then and now but the next most favorable tides of the month will be on the days surrounding the upcoming new moon on the 21^st.  Gag grouper season opened with a bang.  There were lots of productive reports from those bouncing the bottom offshore.  We found a few on the edge of the ships channel in Tampa Bay .  Though it was necessary to weed through some shorts, we managed to wrestle a few keepers out of the rocks.  Those we lost I figured just weren’t meant to be caught, and left them with sore mouths for another day.  Our biggest fish ate our biggest baits.  One ate an angelfish, others inhaled our pinfish and full grown whitebait.  If anchored and bottom fishing for tarpon, with shad hard to come by these days, alternatives will include mullet, ladyfish, pinfish and grunts.  Chunking greenbacks is another option.

Captain Jay Mastry