Captain’s Corner: Jay Mastry

The Tampa Bay Times

What a difference a bait makes.  Saturday, in a hurry to catch an early tide change we settled for smaller bait than we would have preferred.  We caught mangrove snapper but not nearly as many as we’ve become accustomed to.  Sunday, with an extra hour before the change of tide, we were able to gather the three inch whitebait that the mango’s can’t resist.  Fishing the same rocky edge of the channel well inside Tampa Bay as the day before…  we crushed em’ until the tide started ripping out faster than they like it.  Most of all were caught on the whitebait but some of the biggest ones inhaled the small pinfish we cast netted along with the minnows.  Tarpon haven’t gone anywhere, in fact the last couple we’ve had on were by accident.  We caught one on a grouper rod fishing straight up and down on a pinfish.  On another recent trip we had one on a snapper outfit with a thirty lb. leader, a 2 oz. egg sinker, a 1 ought hook and a small whitebait.  Others reported seeing numbers of tarpon in many of their familiar haunts well up inside Tampa Bay .  Until Marco and Laura make up their minds about which way to go, we’ll likely just have to wait and see.  Hopefully it won’t be much more than some rain bands and gusty winds around here that won’t last long.

Captain Jay Mastry