Captain’sCorner: Dave Zalewski

Dave Zalewski 460-9893

Strong westerly winds kept anglers from venturing into the gulf on many days lately. Wind shifts to man easterly direction, although strong on many days still allowed us to get into the gulf and enjoy fishing for many species. Which followed the baitfish that sought shelter closer to the shoreline. Trolling spoons of all sizes either with ior without planers and plugs that would not dive any deeper than 20 feet or slow trolling live bait produced strikes from bonita, ladyfish, Spanish mackerel, bluefish and kingfish. Many species of sharks could be found in these same areas feeding on the smaller predators.

When the easterly winds are so strong that venturing offshore is not advisable often over looked areas are the mitigation reefs that run from the Seabird Sanctuary all the way north to Sand Key. These reefs are in 12 to 15 feet of water and many of them are within 100 yards of the shoreline. Some of them have sanded in, but many of them still show structure extending as high as 5 feet from the bottom. They are about 100 feet square and can be located by use of a Pinellas County Artificial Reef brochure or zooming in on a chart plotter. Many of the newer plotters have these reefs already preloaded in. Because of the shallow water that these reefs are in use of a #1 planer or small lipped plugs is mandated to prevent loss of gear when trolling over them.