Tarpon Springs fishing guide Capt.Rich Knox of longtime Gude Service Absolute Florida Flats Fishing reports with the shorter day’s and the sun slowly moving to the south coupled with a few inch’s of rain, water temperatures are now in the mid to lower 80′s. The big spawning Redfish are beginning to show up in a number of inshore fishing flats following the the school’s of new hatchling pilchard’s. From the barrier island beach’s to the main shoreline flat’s and estuary system’s these oversized Red’s (most out of the slot) 27″to 36″ in. and 12 to 15 lb. can be caught on the pilchard’s that are cast netted up in the 1st hours of the morning, the beach’s and flat’s just inside the pass’s are holding these prime time baitfish.



Watch the bird’s they usually give the location to start catching your bait, I like to get a live-well full 500 to 800 bait’s so I can do some live chumming for these aggressive predator gamefish in areas with with good tidal movement to get the fish going and also to give up there location, watch carefully for boil’s, swirl’s and actual surface blow-up’s, a lot of time in and around the mangrove shorelines, deep holes on a flat, and most any kind of structure, also fish he mullet school’s! You’ll also find nice group’s of Snook and or Spotted Sea Trout in many of the same area’s, all on a light tackle spinning outfit spolled with 10 lb. braid and a 4′ fluorocarbon shock leader tied to #1 or #1/0 live bait hook. These baby cool front’s are starting to line up which will just improve our fishing as they put the feed bag on to store up some winter weight.
Nearshore the nice sized Spanish Mackerel are on most of the inshore artificial reef’s and the King-fish run will be right behind them look for the water temperature’s to hit the high 70′s, bird activity, and all the bait scholl’s on the reef. Recently the Gag-Grouper have been moving inshore also following the small juvenile baitfish 2 inch Spanish sardines, the bird’s also give away these location’s find a good rock pile or some hard bottom ledge in the area, drop a big pilchard or hand sized pinfish and hold on !