Dave Zalewski

The Tampa Bay Times

Dave Zalewski 460-9893

We have been able to get offshore between the recent cold fronts and have encountered some exceptional fishing in the depths from 40 feet to 65 feet. Large white grunts, Lane snapper, scamp, red and gag grouper along with mangrove snapper have cooperated very well in these depths biting on squid, shrimp and frozen threadfin herring. We have not been taking live pinfish with us because of the both red and gag grouper closure, but will be bringing them on every trip beginning January 1 when red grouper open again. Gag grouper will remain catch, photo and release until the season opens again. Because of the closure we downsized our hook size to either a 3/0 or 4/0 to make it easier to target the smaller tasty reef fish. We started having large fish straighten out the hooks and have found the remedy for this. It is to use the same size hook only in a 3x or 4x version. The ‘X” means that the hook is either 3 0r 4 times he strength of a regular hook. Since doing this we have been catching plenty of large gags and will probably never return to the large 6/0 or larger hooks that we were formerly using for grouper.
We tried trolling at both South County and Treasure Island artificial reefs and found at both places we were simply dragging holes in the water. No bites at all even though some baitfish showed on the Sonar. As much as we hate to, we will be putting up the trolling tackle until March and concentrating on bottom fishing. Even with the water temperature in the low 60’s there is always a chance of scoring a pelagic fish, so we will be deploying a flat line during every bottom drop.
Happy New Year to all.