Captain’s Corner: Tyson Wallerstein

The Tampa Bay Times

Artic air early this week will certainly cool off what’s been a hot wintertime bite. Unseasonably warm water temperatures over the past couple of weeks have helped to get all inshore fish moving around better, especially snook. A good snook bite can be hard to come by this time of year. however they are opportunists and if conditions are right they can feed aggressively especially in the afternoon.

Redfish are much more cold tolerant than the snook and can be found shadowing mullet schools in both the Intercoastal waterway as well as the expansive flats of Tampa Bay. Target the first half of the incoming tide for redfish right now. The lower water will make it easier to spot the mullet schools and in turn put you where you need to be for the redfish. Chunk baits such as ladyfish and mullet work excellent under these conditions, allowing you to make extremely long casts to comfortable fish.

Scaled sardines a.k.a. pilchards can still be cast netted in volume most days and have been the ticket for getting the snook fired up. The bait has moved deeper and can often be found near the bay bridges in deeper dredge holes. Look for high diving pelicans to give the bait away, typically the higher they dive the bigger the bait.

Snook have been willing to creep out of backwater creeks over the last several days, but don’t expect them to venture too far from their safe zone. Target mangrove shoreline’s that have small feeder creeks along them on the later portion of the afternoon incoming tide. It’s a small window but the fishing can be very good if you stumble upon a nice school of snook.

Capt. Tyson Wallerstein
Flats Monster Inshore Fishing
(727) 692-5868
capt.tyson@hotmail.com