Captain’s Corner for August 29   Dave Zalewski  727 397-8815

What’s Hot: Despite the temperature of both water and air fishing offshore both trolling and bottom fishing remains exceptional. Historically late August are the dog days with fishing somewhat slow. It may be that everything seemed to be late arriving into our area this year. Spanish mackerel and kingfish are normally very active in early April and this year the majority did not show up in force until late April. Barracuda were a cause for concern because they were almost non-existent until mid-May when they showed up in force and began feeding aggressively. Spanish mackerel, barracuda, and bonita are the trolling targets at this time and most of the artificial reefs are almost a sure thing by using either live bait or hardware. Live bait caught on site through the use of sabiki rigs are much more effective than bait brought from elsewhere right now because matching size and type appears to be critical. We have been pleasantly surprised by the number of kingfish that are still around. There are not enough to specifically target them, but they are a bonus when fishing for the other species.

Bottom fishing remains strong in the 70 to 90 foot depths with colorful boxes of fish being brought back by anglers downsizing their tackle to target some of the tasty smaller species. On every stop we are equipping some of our  anglers with 2 hook 1/0 snapper rigs on baitcasting or spinning tackle. The reward has been a variety of bottom fish that are normally rarely caught on the larger grouper hooks. Mangrove snapper, vermillion snapper (beeliners), Lane snapper, white grunts and yellowtail snapper have all been returning with us because of the use of small hooks. Gray triggerfish will be caught, and provide a great battle on the light tackle, but must be released until January 1, when the season re-opens