Captain’s Corner: Jay Mastry

The Tampa Bay Times

Whether it’s a tropical storm or depression, “Eta” is going to affect our fishing plans this week.  Computer models have varied a bit.  The higher confidence tracks like the European and American routes among the “spaghetti plots” used by forecasters seem to agree… it’s going to be a windy and rainy event around here.  Offshore fishing may be a complete wash due to some predictions of 30 mile an hour wind gusts early in the week.  Inshore anglers may feel the wrath also.  Though it’s projected to blow hard, prevailing easterly winds will hopefully spare the very near shore waters of the Gulf from muddying up too bad.  Even though water temperature is in the mid seventies and just the way they like it, kingfish and mackerel won’t tolerate filtering dirty water through their gills very long.  They will tend to linger longer however if the bait will stay around for them to take advantage of.  As conditions improve, look for the king and mackerel action to heat up.  Over the years, some of my fondest memories of kingfishing trips have occurred on Thanksgiving morning when the weather has permitted.  It’s been a tradition for years.  We’ll sneak out for a few hours at first light and back before the first football game starts.  Many of these trips were right along the beach.  Some on the Clearwater hard bottom, others were the 20’ hard bottom off St. Pete Beach and many at the Blinds Pass “drop”.

Captain Jay Mastry