The Skyway, Paul Bristow 7/22/2016

As the Tampa Bay region produced near record warm temperatures over the past week, the Sunshine Skyway Fishing Piers continued to produce some great catches for visiting anglers.  Mangrove snapper remain the top bite in town this summer, with limits of fish coming during both daylight and darkness time slots.  Spanish mackerel were available as well, and the nice size of some of the fish made up for the fact that it was tough to get a full bag limit.  Gag grouper were aggressive this past week, attacking large diving plugs just as actively as a free-lined pinfish.  Juvenile tarpon were active on the approach sections and near both baits shops, and several visiting anglers got their first shot at the silver king.  Finally, sharks of many species continue to delight anglers new to fishing the marine environment.

The Spanish mackerel bite has been sporadic due to scattered schools of fish for several weeks now, but what the macks recently lacked in numbers was made up for by some very sizable catches this past week.  Good numbers of fish exceeding 20″ were taken by anglers and several fish were well over 2 feet in length.  Most of the good fish were taken by deploying the cut belly portion of a scaled sardine or threadfin herring on a long shank hook below a float.  Use a scissor to cut the baitfish belly portion that will ultimately appear as a small white canoe.  Hook just one end on a size 1/0 or 2/0 long shank nickel-plated hook and send the cut bait out at least 6 feet (or more) underneath a float.  Allow the tide to take your bait some distance from the pier before engaging the reel and allowing the bait to simply flutter with the tide.  A longer leader should allow enough depth, but use split-shot sinkers to add weight if the offering is too close to the surface.  The rod can be held or placed in a rod holder on a medium drag setting.  Attacking mackerel will generally hook themselves with very little angler interaction.

Gag grouper have been on a solid bite since the June 1st regional opener, but fish seemed to get much more aggressive over the past week.  Large catches of both red and gag grouper have been reported by visitors, but many of these fish had to be released because of FWC rules & regulations.  As a rule of thumb, red grouper are often a more common catch at the Skyway Piers than gags, but it is much easier to land a legal-size gag grouper than a legal-size red grouper.  Whenever large numbers of both species become the norm rather than the exception, savvy anglers switch to methods which target the largest and most aggressive fish available.  Plugging is always a good method to catch numbers of grouper at the piers, but at times it becomes the most effective game in town for large fish as well.  Anglers are sending out big diving plugs on heavy spinning gear and cranking them across the artificial reefs.  These large profile plastic baits send out sound and vibrations as they are worked through the water column.  Strikes are both savage and exciting because generally the aggressive larger fish will be first to rise to the plug.  Some plug anglers reported not only double-digit catch numbers, but also several legal fish.

Small to medium sized sharks are providing great action and steaks for grilling for visitors to the Sunshine Skyway Fishing Piers.  Most of the catches are of the blacktip, sharpnose and bonnethead varieties, but sharks of other types were also taken on both piers this past week.  Light wire leaders and freshly cut bait will most often take blacktip and sharpnose sharks, but bonnetheads prefer live or freshly frozen shrimp or crabs on 30 lb. monofilament leader material.  Small sharks can be prepared for the table using a wide variety of methods.  Fillets can be chunked into bite-size pieces for fried shark nuggets and most sharks are also excellent when sautéed or grilled.