Clearwater Beach

Clearwater Beach is located on the western side of Pinellas County and offers stunning beaches and down right fun, if you know where to go. White sand beaches,Sun and relaxation.

Some of top restaurants on Clearwater Beach have boat access. Frenchy’s for instance allows you to dock for free as long as you show the dock master a receipt of at least $20.00 from Frenchy’s restaurants.

For Frenchy’s you have to go in thru the main channel that runs south of the causeway and follows the causeway all the way in. Cruise under the bridge and look for a Frenchy’s

Banner to the left, if going by boat to Clearwater Beach’s Frenchy’s on a weekend once under the small bridge look to your left for a bunch of novice boaters in expensive boats trying dock while their wives are yelling at them for one reason or another. Once docked remember the dock hand that has helped you. You will need to tip him out for doing his job of not letting the other idiots smash your boat to bits while they attempt to dock.

Sheppards on Clearwater Beach is another hot spot for the weekends. You have to get their early or you will never get a mooring. This is a more of a beach bar the restaurant. You anchor your boat and wade to shore. Remember to lay 2 anchors the tide will change and on the weekends you will be with 50 to 60 other boats.

The atmosphere at Clearwater Beaches Sheppards is all Bikini and nothing else. Weekly bikini contests and plenty of beer and drinks flow here. All the girls look and act like dancers and all the guys have shaved chests and are work out losers that are only there to look pretty. Most couldn’t pass a college entrance exam and are destined for junior college at best.

Getting their

From the open gulf head towards the Sand Key pass or bridge you can’t miss it on the left. From the inter-coastal do the same but go under the bridge and look to your right.

The food here at Clearwater Beaches Sheppard’s is so so, a $9.00 hamburger with fries a 5 dollar hotdog , some grouper sandwiches all at beach prices. If you want a place to eat good food at go to Frenchy’s, if you want to have a great time with your girls hang at Sheppards.

If vacationing on Clearwater Beach take full advantage of the docks and all they have to offer. You have a wide variety of things to do there. You can para sail or take a pirate cruise ( for us locals the pirate ship is not that great, but my friends from up north just love it ). You can charter a fishing boat, make sure to walk the docks the day before to make sure your captain has the right spots for fish, also watch the deck hands. The deck hands are key to fishing and assistance, you don’t want a fumbling, clumsy, novice deck hand messing up your catch.

If chartering a boat is to much money for you the Clearwater beach docks have party boats as well that will put you on top of red Grouper and grey snapper .

We recommend Frenchy’s and RockAway’s grill for food and atmosphere. For fun Clearwater beach has the Big pier 60 pier. On weekends they have small booths with vendors on the Big Pier 60’s courtyard. Most merchants are the hippie type and put on a good show.

Since we all have been cooped up for the weekend do to 20 to 25 knot cold winds. I have decided to write about one of my favorite things to prep before a day on the water, barbeque. Being of Asian decent and able to make even the toughest cuts of meat tender and tasty, I have to add this section.

Not many boats out there have a BBQ to cook on. We have had Gas and Charcoal and have settled on Charcoal do to the ease and low maintenance of the entire process. Having your BBQ grill mounted on the side works great and is mighty convenient at times. We just slip the grill into its slide and we are ready.

There are many choices out there to choose from like hotdogs, hamburgers ,chicken or steak. We normally go with Short ribs, my specialty.

A easy recipe is fill a large gallon zip lock bag one quarter of the way with soy sauce then add a half cup of brown sugar and three tablespoons of chopped garlic, chop up 5 green onions and add to bag as well, add a table spoon of sesame oil and a half cup to a whole cup of honey depending on how sweet you want it. Close bag and shake well. Add your short ribs (short ribs or Korean ribs are slice thin about a centimeter or two in thickness.) Hard to find a butcher that will do that for you these days though. Let ribs marinade over night.

After fishing for a while the next day crank up the coals and wait till they are ideal. Then put ribs on the grill, be care not watch them so they do not burn on the grill. They are awesome! We bring corn on the cob as well keep the husks on and soak in water for an hour before you grill them. The corn will take a long time to cook so when you are waiting for the grill to get just right, go ahead and cook them first.

An ice cold beer and some ribs on the Barbie with corn on the cob will make all the other Anglers jealous, because they will be eating their ham sandwiches and watching you eat your Asian barbequed short ribs with corn on the cob.

Live baits

There are many different tactics that have been developed over the years for fishing for Speckled Trout. The easiest way is just free lining live shrimp on a number1 or number 2 hook.

You may need some split shot for a little weight varying on the depth of you area. Free lining shrimp drifting over the flats can be very productive in most instances. Other tactics with live shrimp are casting them close to pot holes or sandy area’s surrounded by grass on the flats.

The flats may vary in depth from 3 to 6 foot of water depending on the area so this is why you may need some added weight to sink your shrimp.

Other Anglers prefer the bobber approach while fishing the Flats for Speckled trout. This method is just as simple, simply attach a cork or bobber to your baited shrimp about 2 or 3 foot up from the shrimp. Make shore your shrimp is close to the grassy bottom and not elevated to high above the grass. This makes the shrimp look as if the shrimp is naturally swimming in its natural way.

You can use the same tactics with Greenbacks or small pinfish for the same results. Depending on the time of year and the availability of these baits.

Live baiting order of choice, Shrimp would be our first choice then would come Greenbacks and finally Small pinfish for Speckled Trout.

Lure’s or Soft Baits

There are thousands of soft baits and or lure’s out there for your Speckled trout pleasures and we will cover just a few really good producers.

The first would be the long lived luv (love) lure’s. This old faithful lure comes in colors of white and pink mostly. The pink seems for us in our region to be the most productive for Speckled trout. The Luv Lure is a double lure that mimics 2 minnows fleeing a pray and should be reeled in slowly with a small jerk every once in a while. This jerk action creates a more live action for the Speckled trout to pounce on. Prices are common for these weighing in just under $2.00 a package.

Other popular soft baits these days are the Berkley Gulp . These baits are a soft rubber lure is impregnated with a fish attracting scent. They come in various colors and imitate various species such as shrimp and minnows to even worms. They have hit the market live a wild fire and have great results. You simply sew the bait on your jig head as you would a grub and off you go. Prices vary for these depending on where you shop. The average price is about $4.65 for a package of 4. But well worth the price

Finally outfitted both my casting and bait holder rods with Okuma Spinning reels. The Okuma Avenger to be exact. Sometimes a little pricey but if you can find them on sale a great bargain. 

After fishing with many other reels thru the years we have finally found a Spinning reel that fits like a glove, And no it’s not just because I have a Asian heritage that I bought Okuma. We both had Penn and Shimano’s in the past. Actually We are outfitted with Penn’s for trolling and grouper digging. 

See their saying below. 

Pure spinning perfection! The answer: the Okuma Avenger! Reflecting a refinement and precision that is the culmination of a decade of research and development.

Marine Upholstery idea’s even us girls can do it

If you are like us, we try and battle the suns rays on our boat at all times, there comes a time when you will just lose this battle. The sun and saltwater constantly beat and bake away your hard work. The colors fade and the seams tear and then comes the dreaded tears.

You are battling the black mold all the time and the only thing that gets black mold off that we found is soft scrub. The bad thing about soft scrub is that it takes the protective finish off the marine vinyl. Thus you break out the Armor all. Every week we went thru this process.

After 6 years of the boat being in a slip and covered most of the time the sun and salt has destroyed everything. You ask yourself , what do I do now? It is extremely expensive to have your seat covers reupholstered professionally. There is No way the average person has an extra two grand laying around for a boat that constantly needs money for something.

Simple solution: for Marine reupholster

• Go to your local thrift store and purchase a used sewing machine $25.00 max ”you are sure to destroy it any ways”
• Estimate the amount of marine vinyl you will need.
• Go to Joannes fabrics or a fabric store in your area and purchase your material (Varies in price) White is the rule of thumb do to fading of this material.
• Purchase a heavy duty staple gun
• Unbolt seats and bring home 2 or 3 at a time.
• Have plenty of beer this will take a while.
• You have a choice to either peel off the fabric on the seats or cover them over.
• Marine seat cushions are easy at least for us it was, Marine plywood base simply cut marine vinyl fabric with enough overlap and wrap entire seat and staple in to place.
• The actual seats are a totally different story, here you have to peal off the fabric and use as a template to create your new marine seat covering. If you have ever sewed before you do this inside out so the seams are flush on the outside.
• After 3 hrs of doing this just for one seat have another beer, This will take a long time for even a small boat so do a little at a time.
• You may have some great idea’s of patterns in your head, these will soon pass after you start this project. Plain white is just fine.
• We chose to scrape the entire front half of the boat seats off rather then recover them to give more fishing room to move around in. We only covered the back half. Leaving a 28 foot pontoon with a 14 by 8 foot fishing area for the front and nice lounging in the back for sun bathing.
• Now is the time for extra’s such as sewing in some pockets to store your lipstick or suntan lotion holder.
• After all of this sewing of marine grade upholstery with an old crappy sewing machine simply throw it out. You won’t need another for a good 5 years.

Catch and Release - A conservation motion that happens most often right before the local Fish and Game officer pulls over a boat that has caught over it’s limit.

Hook - (1) A curved piece of metal used to catch fish. (2) A clever advertisement to entice a fisherman to spend his live savings on a new rod and reel. (3) The punch administered by said fisherman’s wife after he spends their life savings (see also, Right Hook, Left Hook).

Line - Something you give your coworkers when they ask on Monday how your fishing went the past weekend.

Lure - An object that is semi-enticing to fish, but will drive an angler into such a frenzy that he will charge his credit card to the limit before exiting the tackle shop.

Reel - A weighted object that causes a rod to sink quickly when dropped overboard.

Rod - An attractively painted length of fiberglass that keeps an angler from ever getting too close to a fish.

School - A grouping in which fish are taught to avoid your $29.99 lures and hold out for spam instead.

Tackle - What your last catch did to you as you reeled him in, but just before he wrestled free and jumped back overboard.

Tackle Box - A box shaped alarmingly like your comprehensive first aid kit. Only a tackle box contains many sharp objects, so that when you reach in the wrong box blindly to get a Band Aid, you soon find that you need more than one.

Test - (1) The amount of strength a fishing line affords an angler when fighting fish in a specific weight range. (2) A measure of your creativity in blaming “that darn line” for once again losing the fish.

Loaded up with friend in tow early in the morning, A buddy Tom and his youngest son Kenny. We had set up for trout and had plenty of live shrimp. We fished our regular hole not far from the hustle and bustle of the inter-coastal waterway.

Didn’t take long before my honey landed a nice 22 inch trout with a live shrimp. Things seem to go our way from that point. 7 Redfish and 16 keeper Trout all landed with in 3 hrs. The reds mostly 16 to 22 inches were just a consolation prize.

Kenny landed the first keeper Redfish and then we all had our turn at them from that point. We kept our 2 Redfish out of the bunch and released the rest. The trout were hungry landed 27 specs all together.

 Marine Hand held spot lights

Contrary to popular demand all marine spot lights are not the same and most do not stand up to the test of time and saltwater. I purchased for my honey and myself a 2 million watt  and many 1 million watt state of the art portable spot lights from Boat USA/Boaters World and West Marine over the years.

 They all have lasted one maybe two years at the very most. Some of them as little as six months before they no longer take a charge or simply do not work. All the stores are always happy to exchange the ones that quit working with in the warranty period .

 That is not the issue. The issue is these are not cheap and should last longer then they do. We do admit we do test them in harsh environments , Salt water spray and an occasional drop onto the deck does reduce its life a little.

The best scenario I can think of is a late evening that went into the wee hours of the morning. Coming back in with a cooler load of fish on a moonless night in a light drizzle.

We have always kept our lighting system in top order but this one day navigating from the gulf into and thru the inter coastal the ever faithful electric lights failed.

 Of course we broke out the old faithful 2 million watt hand held spot light that is always charged and ready to go and nothing happened. Everything was dead, go figure Newton’s law. Well my honey being the sarcastic person he is reached under his seat and grabbed a 500,000 watt spot light that he had purchased from Big Lots 5 years ago.

This ugly grey Marine spot light that went for 9.99 new at the time was so banged up and covered in some type of smegma that I could not identify light right up and lasted the entire trip home. He only charges it once a month and never cleans it.

Go figure, I spend hundreds on great looking marine hand held spot lights that do everything but wash our teeth for us and he saves the day with a cheap looking rugged

Plastic no name spot light.

The moral to the story is price doesn’t always mean you are getting something that will last or be dependable when you need it.