January 1st was the start of some of the worst cold weather I have seen in my entire life. As a native to the area, I have seen lots of hurricanes crash the coast and summer storms that created tornados, heavy rains and caused severe flooding, but I have never seen a winter with cold like that we had this year.

With the extreme cold weather came a beaten and bruised Snook population state wide. This has been hard on the fishing community.  I have particularly noticed a big decrease in numbers in the area called the South Shore. This area runs from the Alafia River all the way south to Joes Island.  Yes, this area has been hit hard but there are still plenty of Snook, just not in the great numbers of previous years. Because of this shortage, I have chosen not to target the Snook as much as I normally would, concentrating instead on other species.

One of the other species I have grown to like this year is the Mackerel. In the past I have used Mackerel as a back up when Snook and Redfish were slow, but I have now taken a liking to them. They are just about as good a fighter as Snook, and they are a lot less picky.  Putting a plan together to target Mackerel is very easy. Here are several different ways you can choose that all work great.

The first step is deciding what type of bait you want to use. Mackerel are very aggressive fish when they usually hit bait off a reaction strike. Greenbacks are one of the best baits to use for Mackerel due to their silver flashy sides. They can be easily seen from long distances. If you want to use artificial baits, there is none better than a gold or silver spoon. This resembles that same flash like a Greenback's silver sides.

Rigging is pretty basic for Mackerel. I personally like 8 foot spinning gear. I like to use the 8 foot Daiwa Saltiga Rod and a 2500 Tierra spinning reel. When targeting Mackerel, make sure you have plenty of line on the reel as they are very aggressive and streaky fighters. Fins 4-10 lb Wind tammer works well on Mackerel. For leader I like to start out with 50 lb fluorocarbon and go down in size depending on how the fish are biting. Hooks are the trick to catching or loosing fish. You want to use a 3x long shank hook. This will avoid many break offs. Mackerel fishing is relatively easy

Finally, you must decide where to fish! This is pretty easy, unlike Snook, Mackerel are found around most artificial reefs, wrecks, and hard bottom throughout the bay area. Most Gps devices today have preloaded charts that will have the wrecks already marked on them. There are a couple different ways to fish for the Mackerel. One of the easiest and most popular techniques is to troll for them and the other more common way is to simply anchor up tide, start Cumming and free line bait back to into the current. If you don’t have a lot of bait to chum with, you can use a chum block that can be bought at your local tackle store. One last tip when trying to locate Mackerel is to look for schools of bait on the surface getting chased. This is more than likely Mackerel chasing from the bottom up. Putting all these techniques together will ensure a great day on the water with lots of fish to be caught!

Captain Jason Prieto is a native resident of Tampa and has fished Tampa Bay and its surrounding waters for the past 20 years. He is owner and operator of Steady Action Fishing Charters which is based out of lower Tampa Bay. To book a charter, you can reach him at 813-727-9890 or www.steadyactionfishingcharters.com. If you would like to catch him on the radio tune into Outdoor Fishing Adventures Saturday mornings from 8AM to 10AM on 1040 sports talk radio. Tight!!