"I always look for good structure... seawalls, docks, pilings, oyster bars, drop-off, jetties, troughs, or grass flats with sand pockets," he said. Dogfish Bob's preferred tide is top of the outgoing. "But if I'm wade fishing, I wait for dead low tide when I can walk out and cast right to where all the fish are stacked up in the holes."
Want to try your hand at shore fishing? Here's a rundown of what's biting and where this time of year around the Florida Suncoast: At Tarpon Springs - Redfish all over the flats, within easy wading distance from the power plant. Gandy/Weedon Island - The little wooden bridge is a sheepshead hotspot; Large drum and sheepshead around the Gandy Bridge pilings; Good trout action along the causeway. Lower Tampa Bay - Huge reds in Bullfrog creek and Cockroach Bay. They're finicky and won't always bite; Trout at Simmons Park, Big Bend and Apollo Beach flats. Manatee County - Flounder, reds, snook trout and ladyfish in Palma Sola and Terra Cea Bays. Snook, reds, trout, sheepshead, and scattered blues along the Skyway south rocks and Joe's Island. Sarasota County - City Island, Point O'Rocks, Ringling and Tidy Island flats holding just about everything from blues to trout, reds and jack cravalle, plus acres of frisky ladyfish. Here's what they're eating: Live shrimp, jigs (pick your favorite,) D.O.A. Shrimp, CAL Jigs and Terror-eyz, Exudes, Slimy Slugs and other plastic worms on hooks or jig heads, small gold spoons, plus a host of plugs, including most popular topwalkers, slurpers, and pull-under twitchers. As for the wily sheepshead, they'll chow-down on blood worms, shrimp, the innards of oysters, fiddler and sand flea crabs, jigs tipped with shrimp, and Dogfish Bob's secret weapon, barnacles. Incidentally, Bob swears on a stack of tide tables that he's caught mullet -- in the mouth-- working 12-Fathom striped tail jigs! Go figure.
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