Captain’s Corner: Tyson Wallerstein

The Tampa Bay Times

Deep grass flats adjacent to the many spoil islands through ought the inter- coastal waterway attract a variety of predatory feeders. Trout, Spanish mackerel, bluefish, ladyfish and pompano can be caught on any given cast when properly free-lining a bait with the tide. Windy conditions can dirty exposed areas in a hurry, finding the cleaner water will definitely put you into better fishing.

Changing weather conditions have made cast netting pilchards tough, there is still good bait around but the door is definitely closing. Live shrimp paid off huge last week, catch and release fishing for trout has been very good, the bigger fish synonymous for this time of year have began to show up in their usual haunts. Pompano love shrimp, and if one is hooked their sure to be a few more around, we had respectable numbers of pompano every day last week and probably would not known they were if we hadn’t been fishing with shrimp.

Low Tide days are becoming more common; add in a little cloud cover and you have ideal tailing redfish conditions. Scanning the borage of smaller mullet tails and the much darker sheepshead tails, you will easily notice the much larger orange redfish tails. Don’t waste time casting at mullet or sheepshead as ideal conditions can come and go in a hurry.  The best approach to these fish is from an up-tide and up-wind position, this allows you to use the wind to make long casts with a tail-less free-lined shrimp and being up-tide will allow for the scent to naturally make its way to the fish.