Redfish redfish and more redfish best describes Tampa Bay’s action. Captain Steven has the redfish 17-22” dialed in with most days yielding 20-40 redfish some days more!
Sundays action started in 4-6’ of 65 degree water chasing trout. DOA CAL 3” paddle tail jerk baits root beer with chartreuse tail did the trick. Spotted sea trout 13-15” were non stop for an hour. Bounce the jig off the bottom, trout will hit the jig as it fails.
We moved to shallower 1-3’ water in search of larger trout. Larger trout tend to be loners and often require covering lots of water for several fish. Live shrimp on popping corks took 5 bigger trout to 19”. Drifting is a great way to target gator trout. Unlike recent trips we were unable to boat a trout over 20”.
The tide had risen from .8 to 1.6’ and it was redfish time. Shrimp on a 2/0 circle hook with a small sliding sinker quickly brought our first red into the boat. Over the next 2 hours red after red inhaled out shrimp. The reds were very aggressive and while not big redfish the fight on light tackle was fun.
We also caught several big sheepshead while targeting redfish.
