The sun wasn’t quite up yet when we arrived to O’neill’s marina located in St. Petersburg Florida. Today my good friend Amanda Gilbert and Nikki met up to make the run to Anna Maria Island Florida for a day of inshore fishing on my East Cape Fury technical poling skiff. My goal today was to have both of the girls catch their Tampa Bay inshore slam, this slam is made up of a Redfish, Trout and Snook which in most cases is pretty easy. Once we were loaded up with pilchards, courtesy of the bait barge, we ventured across the glassy waters of the Tampa Bay while watching the sun peak over the Horizon. Although there was a crisp and cool wintry feel in the air, there was no wind or chance of foul weather which is why I made the run across the bay rather than towing the skiff to Anna Maria Island. Once we got to our general destination to start fishing, I picked a trough that is notorious for holding Snook on the outgoing tide. I threw out a handful of chummers up current and immediately drew the snook behind the boat. We caught many Snook ranging from 20-28 inches in the course of an hour or so and when we were least expecting it, Amanda hooked up to a Snook that was potentially in the 40 inch class. The Snook blew up on the bait and made a giant explosion while putting on a show shaking its massive head while fighting against the outgoing tide. With docks on one side and mangroves on the other, Amanda had several variables that would throw a challenge at any level or angler. Amanda battled this monster Tampa Bay Snook back and forth as if they were in an intense game of tug of war, but the 15 lb fluorocarbon leader finally failed due to the constant rubbing on the Snook’s rough mouth and razor sharp gill plates. With the sense of slight disappointment in the air, we were all understanding on what happened as we all knew we were slightly under-gunned with 15lb leader. I decided to make a move to a flat notorious for holding large schools of Redfish in the Tampa Bay, but that is typically too shallow to get to for most boats. While poling the skiff with Amanda and and Nikki on the bow, we spotted the large school of Redfish hanging out in less than a foot of water. Amanda put a pilchard on her hook and landed a cast about 6 inches in front of a nice over slot redfish, watched it eat and set the hook like a pro. After boating a few very respectful upper and over slot Tampa Bay Redfish, the school got a little spooky and pushed off to deeper water where we could no longer visually fish for them. With the tide slowing down a good bit, I did what I could to get the girls on a few more Snook and move on to deeper grassy flats in the surrounding areas to find a few trout, which happened to be the only species we did not catch to finish the Tampa Bay inshore slam. In spite of the fact of us not collectively finishing the slam and missing it by what I think is the easiest fish to catch (speckled trout), we had an amazing day inshore fishing in the Tampa Bay. I can almost assure Snook, Redfish or Trout on every Tampa Bay inshore fishing charter, but there are always days when you may miss one of the species, needless to say the Tampa Bay fishery is an amazing one at that and there is always something to bend a rod!
