Скачать или смотреть Avoiding Red Tide While Fishing Tampa Bay

After reviewing the latest red tide map from the FWC, I was apprehensive about what I’d find out on the water July 3rd. Thankfully, Old Tampa Bay still seems largely unaffected by karenia brevis.

I got an early start and was making casts by 6 a.m. There were no dead fish and everything smelled like normal. That was a relief.

The action was slow for the twilight bite, and I only got a couple blowups on topwater despite seeing a decent amount of activity. Shortly after sunrise I switched over to the paddle tail of summer: the 4” Zman in Opening Night, on a 3/16 oz Texas Eye jig head. After missing what I suspect was a decent redfish, I finally got on the board with a trout.

But the bite near old Port Tampa was slow so I decided to fish the other side of the flat. While making some casts near my entry point at the boat ramp, I hooked into a nice jack right as the GoPro battery died. To be completely honest if l wouldn’t have caught that fish I might have gone home.

After trekking over to the other flat, I saw a big school of jacks that I couldn’t get in front of. But the snook were holding near the points of the mangrove islands and I managed to pick up several before getting chased off by a soaker of a rain storm (no lightning).

All in all a solid day and thankful that red tide hasn’t consumed the whole Bay yet.