Captain’s Corner: Jim Lemke

Early morning or evening fishing

Capt Jim Lemke Times Correspondent

With the summer air temperature still in the upper 80’s and low 90’s during the day you might want to look for cooler places and times to fish like early morning or later in the evenings or if you have to fish during the day look under the bay area bridges.

What’s Hot:

With the water temperature still around the 85 degree mark in the morning the top water bite has been great on the bay area flats as the sun is coming up with some nice gator Trout, Redfish and even a few Snook. As the sun gets higher in the sky I start heading to the bay area bridges like the Skyway or the Gandy Bridge and anchor up in the shade and change up gear and start fishing the bridge pilings or the rock piles under the bridges. I fish for Mango Snappers, Sheephead, and Pompano, and a lot more types of fish you can catch under the bay area bridges. In the late evenings I like to fish the mangrove shore line with jerk baits and suspending baits. As the fish move under the mangroves to get in the shade to stay cool like we do getting under the bridges to stay cool.

Tip:

No matter when you can go fishing there is always a stay cool and get in some great fishing in. The best part of it you can use your flats rods to do it all. All you just need to do is change hooks and leader size depending on where you want to go fishing at.

Capt Jim Lemke charters out of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater and can be reached at (813) 917-4989 and at captjimlemke@gmail.com