Captain’s Corner: Jay Mastry

The Tampa Bay Times

Anglers fishing the Skyway fishing piers were dealt quite the hand over the weekend… a pair of kings.  Kingfish, a couple in the thirty to forty pound range were hauled over the rails by those taking advantage of the abundance of bait drawing them to the structure.  Though we traditionally think of tarpon season during May, June and July around here, silver kings have already been witnessed rolling in the shadow line of the piers.  We’ve hooked up tarpon before in late March.  Slow trolling for kingfish all the way up the bay in the G-Cut of the ships channel has resulted in jumping some early season tarpon.  Others we’ve hooked dragging ladyfish along the channel leading into Port Manatee on baits intended for kings.  Still other early season arrivals have been known to chase down trolled baits near the 90 ft. hole on the north end of Egmont Key.  It happens in the fall too, but particularly in the spring acre size schools of greenbacks push way inside Tampa Bay.  Some will spread out in the middle of the bay while others will work their way to the Courtney Campbell and beyond.  Early season tarpon will instinctively roam around until they find them.  We won’t target them yet, but soon they’ll settle into the old tried and true spots they have for years.  All the major bridges in the bay, “mud holes” like the “bootleg”, “Westinghouse”, “Rocky Point”, and the “Franklin hole” will be worthy of a look.  Not long after that we’ll see schools of tarpon migrating along our gulf beaches.  Sight-casters will patiently get ahead of the bunches and properly present crabs, greenbacks, large whitebait or pinfish to the on-coming herd.

Captain Jay Mastry