Captain’s Corner for April 18 Dave Zalewski 397-8815

What’s Hot:

Every type of offshore fishing is on fire right now. The abnormally cold winter set back our fishing almost one month. Normally we can expect Spanish mackerel and kingfish to show up in our waters in Mid-March. Spanish mackerel arrived in force last week and great reports came in both from anglers fishing the Sunshine Skyway fishing piers and anglers fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. They could be caught by trolling small gold spoons, plugs and live bait from the swim buoys just off the beach out to the near shore artificial reefs in the 30 foot depths. Most of the kingfish remained offshore in the 50 to 60 foot depths with the markers along the shipping channel producing consistent results.

Red and gag grouper, white grunts, trigger fish and mangrove snapper fishing has remained strong in the same depths that the majority of the kingfish have been found, probably because this is the depths that baitfish have found comfortable temperatures. On a recent nice day I did not listen to the advice I give others to not run past the fish, and ventured out to the 90 foot depths and experienced poor results bottom fishing. It took an 11 mile run inshore to finally produce a nice box of assorted bottom dwellers.

Tip:

Always deploy a stinger rigged flatline while bottom fishing baited with either live or frozen bait. Last Monday we bagged our limit of “schoolie” kingfish ranging from 8 to 12 pounds while targeting grouper. All of these fish struck frozen sardines.