Frank Sargeant: Winter

By FRANK SARGEANT fsargean@tampabay.rr.com

Published: Jan 6, 2006

It’s a fairly well-known concept that flats fish in winter seek out the deeper holes that form in the creeks, bayous and backcountry around Tampa Bay. But getting to these areas varies from being tricky to downright impossible, particularly on the extreme low tides that are brought on by the strong north and northeast winds of winter cold fronts.

But for a few intrepid anglers, the lower the tide, the better they like it.

“When there’s just barely a skim of water on the flats, that’s when fishing is best,” said captain Mark Thomas of Tampa. “The lower that water goes, the more the fish get pushed into the holes. Sometimes, there might be no more than a dozen fish in a hole at half-tide, and you come back there a couple hours later when all the water has gone out and there are literally a thousand trout and sheepshead in the same place.”

Though Thomas fishes mostly the South Shore area of Tampa Bay, the same sort of action is available from Pensacola to Marco Island at this time of year. And, more saltwater anglers are discovering ways of getting at these fishy concentrations.

Thomas uses an airboat, which makes it very easy. Airboats can push right across wet mud where there is no water at all, so running aground isn’t a consideration. Other anglers use kayaks, which also can operate in almost no water but are limited in range because of their modest speed.

A few anglers simply pole their way to the best spots, though unless you have a very shallow draft boat – perhaps a flat-bottomed aluminum – this may not be an option on days around the new and full moons when the lows are at their skinniest. The typical flats boat, which requires 10 to 14 inches to stay afloat, simply can’t travel into many of the most productive holes.

It’s All Relative

What constitutes good holding water varies by location, but usually the good spots are 4 to 8 feet deep and surrounded by lots of water only inches deep. When the tide pours out, fish that live on the flats are forced to drop into the holes, and it becomes fish soup.

On a recent outing with Thomas and angler Jack Thompson of Tampa out of Shell Point Bait & Tackle in Ruskin, we caught more than 30 keeper-sized trout, five big sheepshead, four redfish and one small snook – all in about three hours fishing only two holes.

And at that, Thomas was apologetic.

“There were a lot more sheepshead earlier, but they moved out as the moon phase changed,” Thomas said. “We have caught as high as 50 on a tide from one hole when things are just right.”

The trout readily grabbed plastic-tailed jigs bounced along the bottom. The sheepshead, as usual, wanted only natural bait. Thomas does best on them by creating what might be called a “natural jig.”

He uses a bare jig head of about three-eighth ounce with an oversized hook. He breaks off the tail of a live shrimp, then slides the shrimp on the hook backwards.

“That’s the way a shrimp swims, so it gives a good presentation,” Thomas said.

The bait is cast upcurrent and allowed to sweep down through the hole.

“If you don’t get a bite by the time it finishes the drift, reel it in and cast again,” Thomas advised.

“If you get it where the fish are, they bite it right away, so it pays to keep trying different parts of the hole until you find the concentrations.”

Keep In Touch

Thomas said another key is making sure the lure is contacting bottom. While we were fishing one of the holes, some other anglers made their way into the spot. But, fishing with corks, they caught virtually nothing while casting live shrimp into the same spots where our jigs were hooking fish on every other cast.

The sheepshead averaged close to 3 pounds each, lunkers for inshore. And, unlike smaller ‘heads, these fish were not tough to hook. Though the species is famed as a bait stealer, these larger fish mostly just bumped the baited jigs once or twice, then ate them.

This winter fishery has greatly benefited from the 1995 ban on gill nets, and should keep improving. When inshore netting was allowed, it was possible for netters to encircle an entire pothole and catch everything in it. These days, those same fish are available to be split up among hundreds of recreational anglers, greatly adding to the potential for cold-weather fishing at a time when the normal action on the flats can be difficult.

The one caveat is to keep an eye on the tide.

If you go into the extreme shallows in anything other than a kayak or airboat, it’s possible to get trapped, just like the fish. And also like the fish, you’ll have to wait several hours for the rising tide to set you free. But fortunately, the hours go fast when you’re hooking a fish on nearly every cast.