Tampa Bay to Sarasota, FLORIDA

    Sorry for the delay but my computer as been down for the last couple of weeks, this will be my first report for the new millennium. The snook fishing had held up strong until last week's cold front. The water temperatures plummeted as the wind blowed hard out of the north for 3days dropping our average water temperature by 10 degrees. That put a dampener on our snook fishing for a while, but it definitely has not killed the fishing. Pompano, Trout, Cobia, Bluefish, and Redfish are feeding readily despite the cooling water temperatures. It has been a great week for my fly fisherman and light tackle charters alike. We have been having tremendous catches of gator trout averaging 17 to 23 inches with a few even larger. This has also been my best couple of weeks as far as pompano go, especially for my fly fisherman. The Pompano are averaging 1 to 3 pounds with a few 4 pounders, the larger ones are being quite finicky. We have been catching all kinds fish mixed in with the pompano, large ladyfish, some nice blue fish and a few trout. It seems like something's always tugging your line on the pompano flats. Most of the big trout and redfish have been falling to live bait, although we taken a few nice ones on the fly. As for cobia, they are scattered in schools of 10 to 20 pounders, cruising with the pompano which is usually the norm. Seems like where there are large schools of pompano roaming there are bound to be cobia.

The outlook is promising for the coming week, it looks like the water temp is already on a gradual climb and I can honestly say the weather couldn't be more beautiful. So if your thinking about it, come on lets go, the fishing is pretty good and the weather is too! Fly guys don't forget to start thinking about our early season fishing for snook, mid February though March is traditionally some of my best fishing for snook on the fly. The water they are in is shallow and clear, this is traditional sight fishing. See the fish, cast to the fish and then hopefully catch the fish. The snook average 4 to 5 lbs. with an 8 to 10 LB being a real nice one on the fly.

Hope you have enjoyed my report and we'll see you on the water!

Copyright © 1998-1999 Fishing Team, All rights reserved.