Tampa Bay to Sarasota, FLORIDA

    Well it has been a while since my last fishing report, with few days off it tends to get neglected a bit. The wind has sustained gusts from 20 to 35mph today and that is what gave me the opportunity for todays fishing report. Until now the weather has been beautiful for the most part. The sunny days have the average water temp at 75 degrees, perfect for snook, trout, redfish, cobia, and last but definitely not least tarpon. Snook, tarpon and trout have made up the bulk of the catch since my last report.

I believe we are truly going have a banner year on tarpon this year. Every day that we have left the flats for a few hours in search of giant tarpon, except for one, we have scored with a fish between 80 to 160 lbs. Last week John Samson landed a true trophy in the 160 to 170 lb class. Its hard for me to estimate a fish that size but it was truly a giant. The only day this year that we have failed to boat a tarpon we hooked six and fought two for better than an hour! This is as good as tarpon fishing gets. I can only imagine what May and June will bring during the peak of the run. If you would like to catch a tarpon, now through June is the prime time and so far its been a heck of a run. Classic sight fishing for tarpon is just getting into full swing. The beaches are just begging and I plan to be in full tarpon mode by the middle of the week. Bridge fishing is still quite good and hook ups pretty much a guarantee, most of the fish are 90lbs or better. For fly fisherman, now is the time to get a tarpon on a fly.

April and May are traditionally some of our finest months for a trophy snook and so far it has proven true. In the last couple of weeks Capt. Shawn and I have boated several fish in the 35 to 40 inch range. The largest was brought in on Capt. Shawns boat last Saturday, caught by Dick Lions of Lakeland, the fish measured 44 inches and was in the 30lb. class. We expect this fish to be one of several trophies caught over the next couple of months as the bigger fish feed heavily preparing for the spawn. Capt. Shawn and I had several snook over 20 lbs, including two which I caught while filming a TV show with Jimmy Rogers last week. As a matter of fact Gregory Hubbered from Dexter, MI. caught a 39incher aboard Capt. shawns boat yesterday. This is also the best time of the year to sight fish for snook over shallow sand flats, its like bone fishing for snook. We had one day last week which produced 15 to 20 fish on the fly in this manner.

Last week I had a few good days of redfishing, with several fish over 30 inches. When the south winds take hold we ought to be killing them.

The west wind has delayed our permit fishing, as soon as it changes permit will definitely be one of our prime targets.

Trout fishing is good right now. I haven't targeted them too much but we have been catching a few while snook fishing. Most are in the 20 to 25 inch range. Yesterday we went to one of my trout holes for an hour or so and caught about 40 of them, 16 of the trout were between 18 and 22 inches, that's not bad for an hours investment.

The giant snook are on the bite & tarpon are on the beaches. We have started getting into schools of over sized redfish and the inshore permit are starting to show themselves. The only trouble now is what would you like to fish for the most. This is truly one of the best times to fish.

Hope you have enjoyed the report, If your interested in the trophy of a lifetime give us a call.

See you on the water!

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