http://www.tampabay.com/sports/outdoors/Captain-s-Corner-Cloudier-water-improves-the-bite_168396587

Windy conditions this week have actually slightly improved fishing. The waters of Saint Joseph sound had become so clear that it made finding fish easy, but getting bites very difficult. Snook have been gathering in great numbers all along the beaches and the points. However, it was very difficult to get any to eat the multitude of baits offered to them. Even reducing leader to 20 pounds could not entice bites. After a bit of wind the waters were a little obscured, making the fishing a bit easier. Trout, snook, jacks and even flounder began to bite a little better toward the end of the week. Rain will also cloud the water slightly, due to run off and silt flowing into the water. Grass grunts, large threadfins and sardines have been a favorite bait to use for snook. Cast ahead of a group by just a few feet to avoid spooking. Bombing baits onto their heads will almost always scatter them. Usually the snook that you catch are not the ones that you necessarily see, rather ones that happen upon your bait. I like to fish the troughs between the shoreline and sandbars parallel to the beach. Those ditches cut out by the waves and the tide are perfect hangouts for a multitude of fish foraging on unsuspecting baitfish living near shore. Some of the larger tides have produced a number of nice redfish. Cut chunks of pinfish laid under the mangrove overhangs is a very productive method for locating redfish. Chumming cut pieces will attract them to your general vicinity, but moving along and targeting each pocket in the mangrove limbs will eventually lead to success.

Brian Caudill fishes from Clearwater to Tarpon Springs. He can be reached at (727) 365-7560 and captbrian.com.

Brian Caudill
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