Captain’s Corner: Jay Mastry

The Tampa Bay Times

Bait is almost always the key to success on our fishing trips.  Gathering the right kind and size can make all the difference.  Regardless of how much time and effort it takes to get them is worth the while.  This time of year while tarpon fishing we’ll go to great lengths to acquire fresh shad and if we can’t locate them we’ll buy em’ from those that can.  When mangrove snapper fishing I don’t want to go without a baitwell full of three inch whitebait.  Of course there are others that will work.  Greenbacks (thread fin herring) are fragile by nature.  Particularly the small ones don’t live long and not nearly as frisky as a hearty whitebait.  Shrimp and even cut bait can at times be productive but not among my top choices.  A bonus has been a new batch of juvenile Spanish sardines that have roamed onto some of the grass flats outside of Coffee Pot Bayou.  We’re cast netting them mixed in with the whitebait and small pinfish while anchored and chumming using a ¼ inch mesh net.  If I knew where I could catch them all the time consistently, they’d be all I’d ever use.  Let a whitebait, greenback and sardine down at the same time while “mango” fishing and bet the whole stack on the sardine getting whacked first.  They just can’t resist em’.  August has long been when we catch some of the biggest (and most) mangos along the Ships Channel in Tampa Bay.  Saturday, in spite of a lethargic two tide day in the last quarter moon phase we caught some of the biggest mangos we’ve got this season.  A couple we wrestled out of the rocks made me realize some of our break offs I attributed to grouper were actually monster mangos.

Captain Jay Mastry