Tampa Bay Fishing Report 2-26-08

[B]Capt. Danny R. Guarino [/B][B][U][Inshore Fishing Charters, Ruskin Florida[/U][/B]
2-17-08 through 2-26-08
Again this period, the weather played a major role in all our activity. The week started out with a cold wind out of the north.
My Tuesday (2-19) trip was a pickup in St. Pete. Due to the wind we were only able to fish the Fort Desoto area. We managed to pick up a few small trout, Lady Fish and of all things a Spanish mackerel
Our next trip was on Friday (2-22). This trip originated in St. Pete but we fished the Southshore area of Tampa Bay. We caught our limit of Trout along with several Snook. The largest Snook was 33 inches. As a note my 13 year old cleans my boat to make a little extra money. On Friday he baited a hook with some left over bait from the bait well and pitched it out in the canal. In about 2 seconds he hooked and then landed a 30 inch Snook that was lying just off my dock. By the way I still had to pay him to clean my boat.
On Monday (2-26) we ran 2 trips. On our morning trip we managed to catch our limit of Trout one single 26” snook and 2 Redfish (17 and 26 inches). The afternoon trip stared off slow catching a few trout and a single 26” Redfish. At 4:00pm we only had 5 or 6 fish to the boat then, the bite started and in the last 2 hours we caught 10 Snook from 20” to 30” and more trout than I could keep up with. This was one of the best Snook bites I’ve seen in two month.
Although we did manage 2 impressive Red fish this period I still think the Red fish bite is off., at least for me it is. I would suspect that on low tides these fish are in the pot holes along the flats. Not reachable by boats that have a draft of more than 6 inches. Wading would be a good option for these fish.
With the water temperature sitting in the upper 60’s we should continue to see some good action with Snook and a continued good bite for trout., however, we will have to get through yet another cold front and it’s 25 knot winds this Wednesday before the bite starts again.
There is no white bait on the flats with most of the bait holding deep around the Skyway. Catch em up.
[B]Capt Danny R. Guarino[/B]
[B][URL="http://www.fishingguidetampabay.com"]www.fishingguidetampabay.com[/B][/URL]
813-956-2010