FISHING By Capt. Dylan Hubbard
170 John’s Pass Boardwalk, Madeira Beach • 727.393.1947
www.HubbardsMarina.com
INSHORE– Sheepshead are starting to get more aggressive and prolific around the local structures. Small pieces of fresh shrimp, cut clams or oysters, and especially the smaller crabs like fiddlers, mud or mangrove crabs are all great options for sheepshead bait. You want to use either a very light knocker rig or a free line set up with some small split shots. Minimal weight is key on lighter tackle with around 15-20lb fluorocarbon. Smaller strong hook around 1ot or perhaps even smaller. These fish will bite right on or adjacent to big structures like docks, bridges, piers, jetties, seawalls, rock piles, and also around oyster bars. These guys are tons of fun to catch and fight hard on lighter tackle around the structures. They can be difficult to fillet but are great eating fish.
Trout action is picking up and we’re seeing larger average sizes on the trout too! These guys love those ambush points around the edges and potholes of local grass flats. However, we are seeing them around the bridge lights and dock lights at night too. Redfish action continues to be impressive too. Just keep in mind, trout, redfish and snook are all catch and release only for the greater Tampa Bay area until end of May.
NEAR SHORE & OFFSHORE – Hogfish action is going extremely well right now in 30-70ft of water. Live shrimp or fresh dead shrimp and light tackle is best. Use 20-30lb fluorescent for the leader with 3-4ot hooks. They love crustaceans so you can use fiddler crabs, rock shrimp, sand fleas, and even other small crabs to target them but the live shrimp or fresh dead shrimp is the most common choice when targeting hogfish.
Mangrove snapper fishing right now has been stellar offshore and pretty good near shore too. We start to see mangroves around 50-80ft but we are seeing some big girls beyond 100ft of water right now. This time of year we are seeing some large overall sized in our long range trips with some in the 7-10lb range. These smart fish are tons of fun to target on threadfin plugs with the double snell rig. However, near shore many prefer to target them on a knocker rig or jig head with live shrimp or greenbacks.
Yellow tail snapper are around right now too; we are seeing some of these fish mixed in with the mangrove snapper and some of them have been very large too. They will take a threadfin plug or live shrimp like the mangrove snapper, but we target them specifically with small strips of squid around a ½ inch thick and about 2 inches long.
Lane snapper are more and more prolific from around 60-110ft of water and we are seeing huge lane snapper right now too. They seem to only be getting larger and more prolific around these depths, biting just about any baits from threadfin chunks to squid, to octopus to live shrimp when targeting hogfish or mangrove snapper in the deeper near shore waters.
Blackfin tuna time is approaching out past 80-100ft, we see a big push of these fish in cooler months in our area and we are starting to see these guys coming up on the troll, flat lines and even knocker rigs. Wahoo are around right now too. These super-fast fish are fun to fight and will scream drag like no other fish.