SNOOK LEAD SUMMER SLAM POTENTIAL

By CAPT. BILL MILLER
Fishing in St. Joseph Sound is very good right now. Capt. Brian Caudil and I, along with the “Hooked on Fishing” camera crew, enjoyed great fishing this week on the outgoing tide around Honeymoon and Caladesi Islands.

I had not caught a snook since just after the big freeze of this past winter. On this trip, I caught two snook over 32 inches and hooked three more. Another guide and his party also hooked and caught some big snook near us. Grass grunts were the best bait.

We also ran across a big school of feeding redfish between the islands and the ICW. Caudil moved us in front of them with his trolling motor and threw a handful of crippled whitebaits in their path. We followed the chummers with hooked baits and the feeding frenzy erupted. All of the redfish we caught were in the upper slot size or bigger.
To finish off our inshore slam we set out in search of trout. We didn’t have to go very far to catch plenty. Three keeper flounder made a nice bonus.

Dick Guagliardo has been catching lots of big mackerel in Tampa Bay by fishing the bait schools. Guagliardo has been trolling #2 and #3 spoons behind planers and catching big mackerel in the 2- to 4-pound range. Look for diving birds and striking fish near the ship channel from the Sunshine Skyway to MacDill AFB.

The St. Pete Pier has lots of mangrove snapper around the pilings, reports Mastry’s Tackle. Small whitebaits and pieces of shrimp have been the top baits. Mastry suggests hiding the hook in the bait because mangos have keen eyesight. A few pompano have also been caught on yellow and pink pompano jigs.

American red snapper season is now closed in the Gulf. It may reopen in the fall if fisheries managers feel the recreational quota was not met due to the oil spill closures in the Gulf.

Reprinted with permission of The Tampa Tribune