Captain’s Corner for April 29 Dave Zalewski 397-8815

Even though the water temperature offshore has rapidly risen to 80 degrees, enough kingfish have remained in our area to make them a daily target. They have fins and tails and are constantly on the move northward to their summer home in the upper reaches of the gulf. A few weeks ago they could be found on all of the usual spots such as the artificial reefs, the shipping channel, high profile ledges, and wrecks. As the schools have thinned out it takes some searching to find them, but once a small school is located action is often non-stop.
Just as in any sport a “game plan” is necessary. We normally make one of the near shore artificial reefs such as St Petersburg Beach, Treasure Island or Madeira Beach our first stop and deploy a #1 planer with a small spoon for Spanish Mackerel and a #2 planer with a larger spoon to target kingfish along with a ballyhoo or frozen sardine as a skip bait.. Each of these reefs is 2000 feet long with material scattered all over and require some time and patience to cover all of it. Once a strike is experienced a quick push of the MOB button will allow you to return to the spot where the bite occurred. Once a few fish are landed, switching to live bait caught on site will provide more sport on light tackle.
If action is slow or non-existent on the near shore, the next stop for us is the mid-water artificial reefs such as South County or Indian Shores. These reefs are ¼ mile square with many high profile structures situated on them. Them same tactics are employed on them to find fish.