Inshore Fishing the day after a harsh cold front in the Tampa Bay can always be intimidating to a fishing guide. Between the gusty north winds and not being able to get to some of your most valuable fishing spots due to rough conditions in the bay, a cold front can really throw a curveball at your day. Luckily today’s angler is a fishing guide from Charleston South Carolina and understands how different weather patterns may effect the fishery. My plan A for the charter was to take Kevin and his father nearshore fishing in the 30-50 ft of water range, the fishing in the gulf is usually less affected by cold fronts. I was hoping to target Hogfish, Mangrove Snapper, Grunts, Lane Snapper and hoping for the curious Cobia as these are all fish that I target this time of year at the reefs. As we make our way to the Gulf of Mexico out of Bunces Pass in St Petersburg Florida, we could already tell that the Gulf was going to be a little rougher than the weather man predicted. After trying to push through the less than favorable conditions, I decided to turn around and target fish around the docks of Tierra Verde until the wind subsided, in hopes to make it back out to the Gulf. It is still a little early for the Sheepshead to be loaded up at the docks, but after a cold front like last night’s, there should be a few here and there with Redfish, Grouper and Black Drum in the mix trying to stay warm by using the docks as a heat sink. When fishing docks in colder seasons of the year in the Tampa Bay I like using live shrimp free lined or with a small split shot above the hook. Long story short, we fished about a dozen or so docks with the same results, small mangrove snappers and a short sheepshead here and there. It was time to switch gears so I headed out to a couple of small mangrove islands where we saw quite a few groups of big Snook, Sheepshead and Redfish mixed in with the Mullet. We worked live bait, dead bait and site casted the Sheepshead with live shrimp but they were not in the mood to eat, time to move on. The wind was blowing around 20mph of the north and most of the places I wanted to go would beat us up, so I decided to take the long way to the north side of the Skyway Bridge shipping channel to fish a few rock piles for Mangrove Snapper and Grouper as a last ditch effort to put some good fish on the board for my anglers. Using knocker rigs and shrimp, Kevin and his father fired two live shrimp down to a rock pile in 40 feet of water and doubled up on two turbo sized Key West Grunts (one of my favorite fish to eat by the way). We bounced around to a few other ledges and rock piles and had little success landing fish but had lots of scavengers tear our baits up. I packed it up, stored the rods and made a quick run to the main span of the Skyway Bridge to fish the exposed rocks for Snapper, sometimes I even catch big snook here in the cooler months. Since it is so rocky and shallow here, I like to free line a pilchard or shrimp with no weight to prevent getting hung up or stuck on the rocks. It didn’t take long to get a bite here, it was almost every cast that Kevin and his father were either hooking or landing a fish. We ended up catching a mess of size large Mangrove Snapper, a handful of Spanish Mackerel, the occasional mystery fish breaking us off and ended up capturing a pelican that had a fishing lure stuck in its wing with fishing line wrapped around his entire body (pelican was relieved of all hooks and fishing line and flew away with ease). Overall, it was a great day fishing. Some days you just have to work a little harder to make the fish cooperate. Fishing in the Tampa Bay is wonderful this time of year and there are lots of options. Although my specialty is inshore fishing for Redfish, Snook and Trout, my fisherman wanted to catch a few fish for dinner and do something different than the traditional inshore fishing I typically offer on my charters. There are always fish to catch here in the Tampa Bay and I can guarantee you we will bend a rod and have a great time doing so!
