It's officially Spring!Get ready because the fishing is really heating up!
With the wind blowing so much this week, the redfish bite has been a little off. But, the good news is that sea trout, spanish mackerel, and bluefish have really been making a great showing. Not just in number but in size as well. Tarpon Springs is starting to see bait flood the flats and that has turned the trout bite on and brought the mackerel back to the flats. As I've mentioned in recent previous reports, the wind can make things difficult when fishing for redfish. We've had front after front come through and it seems to have pushed the redfish off of their usual shallow flats. If we get a few calm days in a row they should return and the bite should be on again. 
Water temperatures hit 70 degrees this week on the flats and the snook have taken notice. I've seen snook near creek mouths and river mouths and even a few out by the islands. That bite is set to go off big time. We had a few 40+ trout days this past week with some fish reaching 6.5 lbs. We caught the most fish on 1/8th oz. jigheads with either Gulp Shrimp or Exude Darts in light colors. The smaller fish were schooled up in deep troughs but the big fish all came from less than 2 feet of water. 
One day this week I loaded the live well with huge greenbacks. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them since they were too big to use for redfish and trout and the snook weren't cooperating but then I decided to try a flats where bait had been pretty thick. I threw out a bunch of baits to chum the water and see if anybody was home. It wasn't long before the chummers were getting crushed by monster mackerel. We hooked way more than we landed because the toothy critters could cut through my 70lb leader with ease but when we got good hook sets we were treated to some very large mackerel. One of which was over 30 inches long (pictures coming soon). So if you are fishing on a windy day and you can't find snook or redfish, try fishing some flats in 4-6 feet of water and see if you can get into some of that fast paced, line zinging, mackerel action..
Captain Clay Eavenson
813-300-2147
