I made a conscious effort last year to not fish the “popular spots” for tarpon; at least I avoided those spots as much as possible. In fact, I only cut bait one time at Bean Point all season and that lasted about 1 hour before my clients asked if we could go somewhere else. It wasn’t that we hadn’t been catching fish, alongside everyone else, for the previous several years. It just got crowded and stressful; even when we were catching fish.

Maybe I’m just getting old or maybe my definition of success has changed throughout the years, but at this point in my life, I’d rather hook a couple of Tarpon, than 20 Tarpon if I can do it all alone. There’s just something special about not following the pack and going against the flow.

So, last year I decided I was going to do things differently. I was going to watch everyone head one direction in the morning, but I was going to head the other. I was going to watch everyone else throwing the net, while I skipped that and just rolled out with a dozen crabs. I was going to work hard at finding my own fish, while every one else flocked to the massive schools of tarpon. Even if it was just schools of 5-10 fish, as opposed to the thousands that school up at Anna Maria on the big tides, I was determined to avoid the crowds. I wasn’t sure how it would work out, but you know what? We had a blast all Summer long and we caught tons of fish.

We didn’t have a lot of 20 fish days last Summer, but, we also didn’t have any of those days where we were passing off rods to other boats, work- ing our lines under boats to try not to get broke off, or having other people’s fish get tangled up in our lines. It was peaceful, exciting and it was successful. It was the way Tarpon fishing was meant to be. Just you and the fish.

I’d love to say that I figured this all out on my own, but I didn’t. Long time Tarpon guides like Jim Lemke, Glen Taylor and Tommy Ziesmann have been preaching this style of contrarian Tarpon fishing to me for years and I was absorbing it but, until last year, I really hadn’t put it into practice.

You wanna know the secret that they had spent years trying to drill into me? Well, here you go. There are fish everywhere in the Tampa Bay area from May through the end of July; not just where the other boats are. There are fish up in the bay, around the bridges, in the passes, on the beaches, in the ICW, in canals, in marinas… all Summer long. Of course they move around with the tide and the bite changes with the tide as well, but you can find fish on your own every single day if you really look and put your time in. Also, you don’t need a school of 1,000 fish to hook a bunch of fish. All you need is 10 schools of 10fish to wear your- self out. You can hook just as many fish out of 10 pods of 10 fish as you can out of 3 herds of 1,000 fish, if you fish them right and you can most likely do it by yourself, because everyone else will flock to the big herds of fish.

There’s nothing wrong with the party type of atmosphere of fishing around a bunch of folks. In fact, at times it can be exciting. When you hook up, everyone gets excited and starts cheering anglers on and it really is like a big party. There are tons of fish at those well known spots and when the bite is on, it’s really on, however, I think for the next several years, my clients and I will be going against the ow and chasing after those fish that are typically left alone in search of that one bite that will make our day. There won’t be the cheer of the crowd when we hook up, but oh how we’ll enjoy hearing the drag sing and sound of the splash of the “Silver King” as it hits the water.

Captain Clay Eavenson
813.300.2147
reservations@captainclay.com
www.captainclay.com

With a delayed winter, a windy start to Spring and strange weather coming through at a rapid rate thanks to our friend El Nino, it’s not the ideal time to fish, unless you like targeting big trout as the fronts continue come through.

It’s widely known that trout love overcast and rainy weather. It seems like the worse the weather is, the better they will bite. Through the warm fall and early winter, many anglers wondered just where all the trout were. They were tough to and and harder to catch. Now they are showing up and ready to bite for anglers and the trout are big ones at that.

On a recent bad weather day in a cold north breeze, Capt. Chris Wiggins landed three trout over 25 inches with one nearly 30 inches. Those are trophy-sized trout. Capt. Wiggins likes to fish dock lines with medium-sized shrimp and a small split shot above the hook. He works the shrimp like a lure, slowly twitching them along the bottom. By the end of the day, his clients had landed 30 trout.

Fishing for big trout often means that you are looking for a single fish or small groups of sh. On colder days, when the sun is out, the fish might be up in shallows (1-2 feet of water) where it warms up more quickly and they are rarely expending energy. During pre-front days, they’ll be on the move, actively looking for their next meal.

Artificial lures like Yo-Zuri pencils that can “walk- the-dog” or suspending baits like Crystal Minnows could entice the bigger fish to bite. This can occur on the edge of deeper grass flats where they wait for their next meal. In shallow water or at low tide, a single gator trout could be sitting in a sand hole the size of a bucket or as large as a basketball court.

Small trout tend to await prey in similar areas, but you may nd that when you’re catching schools of trout, they tend to all be a similar size. When the bite is on, it’s not uncommon to catch a few dozen, or more trout, in the same spot. For these smaller sized sh, jigs and soft plastics can entice a hot bite. Bring a dehooker or a pair of Mustad pliers to unhook and handle small trout as little as possible.
This year, I experienced a new way to fish the cooler water temperatures. A traditional pattern on the Big Bend would be to anchor up-tide and fish the bottom with jig heads tipped with shrimp in holes, river mouths and oyster bars. It’s a technique that has been tried and true for decades, on our coast. I admittedly grew up using live bait, so I was eager to learn new techniques for cooler water artificial fishing with Captain Mark Brady, Captain Jimmy Nelson and Luiza Barros.

I began by throw- ing my favorite topwater lure. I love throwing the biggest topwater I can find from sunrise until mid-morning, while the sun is at a low angle. It typically produces action – at least when the water is above 75-degrees. On this particular morning, I stuck with my topwater out of pure stubbornness, like a dog with its favorite bone. It didn’t work, but going to a super slow artificial did the trick. It took about 15 minutes to break every habit I had with artificial lures. I am accustomed to fishing lures fast, violent and aggressively, but I eventually slowed it down to a mind numbingly slow pace. Within minutes I had a solid 23 trout and then one after another. Luiza plucked a few on her Mambo Mullet by Egret Baits and Jimmy popped a few on his Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow.

There were a few key points to our success. The retrieval rate must be S-L-O-W. I’m talking as slow as one of those Twilight movie plots (no, I’ve never watched one). When you think you’re working slow enough, add more time. The un- spoken secret to fishing on the flats, this time of year, is that there’s virtually no bait on the flats, so if you can keep the lure in the strike zone long enough, you increase the odds of a bite tenfold.

I don’t always advise heading out when the conditions turn poor, but if you’ve got a sense of adventure and you want to bend a rod, it can lead to fish that really want to eat.
Changing conditions mean fish are on the move. Fish on the move mean energy expelled and energy expelled means feeding time to replenish. With the rapidly changing weather, trout should be eating.
For more captains that capitalize on our trout fishery, visit Outdoors360.com for recommended guides and additional information & videos.



When I think of the Florida Keys, the first places that come to mind are Key West, Key Largo and Islamorada. These towns are famous for being meccas for fishing, diving and simply living the island life, but buried deep in the heart of the Florida Keys is one of the best hidden gems of all, Lime Tree Bay Resort. Lime Tree is tucked away on the bay side of Long Key, halfway between Islamorada and Marathon. This upscale resort brags to have the best sunsets in all of the Keys. Recently, Captain Jimmy Nelson invited me to spend a few days there with him and fellow Salt Life pro-staffer Luiza Barros for some fishing. How could I resist?

Our first day was supposed to be all about the reef. A quick dive in the morning and then we slipped off the Cressi wetsuits and started looking for some quality meat sh to ll the Grizzly Coolers. One of my favorite parts of fishing the middle keys is the seemingly endless supply of patch reef structure. We were out with Two Conch Charters and they put us to work hauling in snapper, grouper and hog sh. As we neared the boat’s limit of each, the Captain suggested we pull anchor and look for cobia. I always get a little nervous leaving a perfectly good fishing hole to go find more sh, but it wasn’t my place to complain. We already had enough snapper in the Grizzly to feed us for a week, so what difference was it going to make? As it turned out, it made all the difference in the world.

I don’t think we travelled for 15 minutes when I heard the captain yell “Cobia straight ahead!” Jimmy, with a Yo- Zuri, and me with a weightless Mustad 8.0, pierced the nose of a freshly netted pin sh. We slowly approached what we quickly realized was an entire school of Cobia. My heart was racing as I flipped lunch out in front of the biggest cobia I could spot. I heard Jimmy’s drag start singing out and as I glanced over my shoulder in jealousy, I felt the solid tension of the start of my workout. As the sharpened point of the Mustad hook pierced the jaw of my cobia, the battle began. We battled with some quality cobia for what felt like just a few minutes but was probably more like a couple of hours. Just as quickly as it began, the battles were over, but not before we had the boat’s limit of Cobias. All I could think about as we headed back to the marina was how in the world are we going to top this day?

In the Florida Keys, every day promises the possibility of being the best day yet. On the second day, with the lactic acid still fresh in our muscles from the long relentless cobia fights from the day before, we headed down the road to meet up with Capt. Dave Jones of the Gimmie Jimmy. As we idled out, we excitedly told him the tales of the previous day’s adventures. He just smiled with that “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet” look and we planed off the boat and headed offshore.
In the keys, the reef line is just a few short miles from the comfort of the resort. Patch reefs, grass beds and scattered rock piles litter the sea floor between the islands and the reef and then it all gives way to the gulfstream, dropping off steadily from a few dozen feet to a few hundred. When it comes to Captains, Dave Jones is among the best of the best. We have often trusted him to guide us through the waters of the northern Caribbean and on this trip, as well as all others, he did not disappoint. Deep dropping has quickly become one of my favorite types of fishing. The mystery of 1,000+ feet depths creates an excitement rivaled only by the exuberance you experience when all your guesses of what is on the other end of the line give way to the answer as colors appear in the sea of blue. Queen Snapper, Tile sh and Grouper all call these depths home and Captain Dave is a pro at landing them all.

After hours of slinging these depth dwellers in the boat on to the SeaDek, we switched to the pursuit of the pelagics. A wahoo, sail sh and a school of dolphin, before squeezing in a few mutton snapper on the reef. Its hard to believe that we did it all in eight hours. We had an epic day of fishing offshore, or, as Dave would call it, an average day in the Florida Keys.
Back at the resort, we enjoyed evenings of pure relaxation. Lime Tree Bay Resort’s onsite restaurant treats its guests like royalty. The sh could not be fresher and the steak still makes my mouth water. My favorite thing is to sit out in the hammock by the coconut trees and I could be found there pretty much any time we were not eating or fishing. A good set of Wiley X glasses takes the edge off the sun and peace is just a light breeze away.

For some, the Florida Keys is a once in a lifetime checkbox on the bucket list. For others, it is a routine stop as a weekend get away. For me, the Keys have always felt a little like home. Whichever category you fall in, fall into the Lime Tree Bay Resort and experience the authentic Florida Keys’ lifestyle, with a little bit of luxury on the side. World-class fishing is a coconut’s throw away, and you will be able to enjoy some of the best island experiences the Keys have to offer.

Now that all the holidays are behind us and most of us are getting back to our normal routines with regular work weeks ahead and most people in other areas of the country are shoveling snow and stuck indoors, the sunshine state offers some great fishing this month. Trout takes center stage as the big Gator Trout invade the Grass flats. You will also find a variety of fish on the reefs from Sheepshead to Grunts; it’s a good time to fish in the bay.

Trout fishing is great this time of year, as the Gator Trout invade the flats. You can expect to find some awesome Trout fishing on the South Shore of Tampa Bay. Finding the big girls is not all that hard, just find the healthy turtle grass with good tidal ow or deeper areas with oyster bot- tom and the big Trout will not be far away. As for tackle I love throwing artificial baits, this time of year. One of my favorite Trout baits has to be the Zman Pearl white Minnowz rigged with a 1/8 ounce Jig head. This bait is relatively easy to use and will produce a ton of fish.

Sheepshead is another great option that is commonly over looked by most anglers. They are one of the best fighting fish around and during the months of January and February they show up around the artificial reefs to spawn. Sheepshead are somewhat different in both their appearance and what they eat.

They like to eat barnacles from pilings which are a little hard to find as bait. I like to use small shrimp with a Daiichii #1 circle hook. Add an adequate amount of weight to get your baits to the bottom. Sheepshead have a VERY soft bite so you will go through a bunch of bait until you find the perfect hook set. Trust me, it will take a little practice. Areas to target for sheepshead include any type of structure or reef. Artificial reefs are great starting points and the GPS numbers are available on the Internet. These same areas are typically shed hard by others, so you probably won’t find the big fish here.

Finding your own secret ledge that holds fish will be the key to catching BIG Sheepshead. Best of all, unless you give someone the numbers it’s all yours to sh by yourself. Once you have figured out how to fish for Sheepshead, you will soon be hooked on catching these Zebra looking, great tasting fish.

Red fish are also plentiful this time of year. I typically have great success around the residential docks, creeks and deeper oyster bars, this time of year. Shrimp is my favorite bait, when targeting Reds in the winter. Using a Free lined bait or possibly adding a split shot for weight is the best technique for Red fish. Keep in mind that Red sh love crustaceans and pick up on the scent, so soaking live or dead shrimp on the bottom will work great. This is also very effective when water temperatures are low on the colder days. You will catch a lot of smaller fish this time of the year, but with a little patience, you will find the bigger ones move through, as well. Tight Lines!

Captain Jason Prieto is a native resident ofTampa and owner of Steady Action Fishing Charters. Visit www.steadyaction shingcharters.com. Catch him on the radio by tuning into Tampa Fishing Outfitters Radio Show on Sunday Mornings from 8 to 9 AM 1040 Sports Talk the Team.

“I’ve been a die-hard snook fisherman for as long as I can remember.”

When I was a teenager, back in the 80’s, I would travel over 100 miles just to get the chance to catch snook. Some- times it would be Cape Canaveral and other times it would be Tampa Bay. Either way, this was the only way to get my “snook fix,” until the day I earned my own local stripes. This is a day I will never forget.

I was fishing for bait back in Ozello, along the banks of an old abandoned limerock pit that had been filled in with saltwater, due to its close proximity to the marsh. This pit always held lots of pinfish and mud minnows that we would use for redfish bait in the backcountry. On a bright sunny summer day, I saw what seemed to be logs lying on the bottom of a drop off. I really didn’t think much of it until I saw one of them move. After I turned my focus to those logs, I realize that they were not logs; they were actually snook. Yes snook, all the way up here in Ozello in an old abandoned lime rock pit! Wow, Who would have thought of them being way up here, but there they were right in plain sight. Back then the normal northernmost range on the West coast of Florida for common snook was thought to be Tampa Bay and Anclote Key. Now, you can understand why I was in such amazement when I had discovered that there was a population of snook way up here in the Big Bend.

Since then, there has been much more re- search done on common snook and now their northernmost range is actually closer to Cedar Key. There are still a handful of snook catches reported north of there every year, but not enough to target them as a species like trout or redfish. There are still a few people that cannot grasp the fact that people catch trophy-sized snook in Yankeetown and Crystal River on a regular basis.

A large percentage of the snook that are caught in the Big Bend region are caught in the spring and summer. These fish are com- ing out of the fresh water rivers and creeks where they spend their winter. Snook are what marine biologists call a catadromous species. This just means that they spend most of their lives in freshwater, then migrate to saltwater to spawn. There are still many snook that are found year round in the large freshwater springs in the area.

Targeting spring & summertime snook in this area can be done a multitude of ways. The first way would be with topwater plugs, like the Mullet 120 by Unfair Lures or the pencil bait by Yo-Zuri. Most people will use a top- water plug only in low light conditions, but let it be known that it can be used throughout the entire day, as long as there are mullet swimming on the surface of the area that is being fished. Being able to see past the glare is a must when using topwater baits in the middle of the day. The sight of a 20 plus pound snook destroying a topwater bait at high noon is something that will be burnt into your brain for as long as you live. The down side to this is that heavier than normal tackle needs to be used since the strike is so violent. Medium heavy action rods like the Tsunami Airwave 8-17# class or even the 10-20# class rods will surely increase the chances at land- ing one of these monsters. Using a minimum of 50# Yo-Zuri fluorocarbon or monofilament leader is necessary to minimize cutoffs.

Another good way to target these fish is with a jig and small soft plastic combination. This technique is more user friendly to the tackle. This may be the best way for light tackle anglers that want to land a trophy. The DOA
3” Cal Shad Tail and the Wedge Tail Mullet Egret Baits are both great baits to use because of their versatility. You can make them mimic a baitfish or a shrimp just by changing the speed of your retrieve. Another great plastic to use is the Vudu Shrimp by Egret Baits. This bait seems to trigger a feeding reaction in snook. Using a 30-pound leader is sufficient for jigging because most fish get hooked close to the edge of the mouth where the leader does not come in contact with their rough sandpaper like teeth. It is just up to the angler to keep the line out of their gill plate if the fish goes airborne.

Live bait fishing is the most effective way to catch extremely large fish, especially fishing an area that is near deeper water. The best choice of bait would have to be a 12” mullet on an 8/0 Mustad Demon Perfect circle hook on a minimum 60 pound fluorocarbon leader and 50 pound braided line. Combine that with a heavy action Tsunami Air Wave Elite 20-40lb-class rod and a Canyon 5000 spinning reel. This sounds similar to what most people would be fishing for tarpon with because that is exactly what it is. Big fish need big tackle when using live bait.

Whatever method you choose to target snook in the Big Bend Region, please remember to practice catch and release whenever possible. This will insure that they’ll be here for years to come for all of us to enjoy. If you find yourself up this way and you see me on the water there is a very good possibility that you are in the right area for earning your stripes.

Captain Marrio Castello ofTallTales Charters 352-454-7719 | www.TallTalesChartersFL.com