Captain’s Corner: Jay Mastry

The Tampa Bay Times

Last weeks full moon ignited a tarpon bite felt by many.  Those taking advantage of the crab flush during the stronger than normal afternoon outgoing tides were rewarded with multiple hookups.  Tarpon will gang up during this moon phase in many of our area passes to take advantage of the easy pickins’.  Both north and south passes on either end of Egmont Key has long been among the most productive.  Allowing your crab to drift naturally with the tide will produce more bites.  Dragging them behind your boat is counterproductive.  “Chunking” has become another popular technique to get in on the action.  It can be done anywhere tarpon are but widely preferred by anglers at the Skyway Bridge.  This method requires anchoring and nonstop chumming with chunks of bait.  As tarpon are drawn to your chum line, allowing your hooked baits to drift back naturally with your chummed chunks can be most effective.  Look for this action to heat back up on the days surrounding the new moon the 30^th of this month during the dumping outgoing tides.  I’ll also credit the moon for sparking a mangrove snapper bite in Tampa Bay we haven’t seen for a couple months.  Saturday morning they were chewing as fast as we could get down for an hour and a half on the incoming tide way up inside the Bay.  We caught them all on whitebait, a 1 ought hook, 2 oz. egg sinker and 20 lb. test fluorocarbon leader.  They weren’t all the full grown ones we’ll be catching in another month or two – but we never caught a juvenile we had to let go.

Captain Jay Mastry