June 2007
You are currently browsing the articles from Lucky Angler written in the month of June 2007.
Spot tail pinfish (Diplodus holbrooki) also known as porgy, spot, spot-tail porgy, and sailor’s choice. They are similar in appearance to the pinfish, but they have a large black spot in front of the base of the tail.
According to the biologists, they hang around in shallow coastal waters and in lower areas of coastal bays and sounds. Our experience is that they are most frequently caught in offshore waters around hard bottom and reefs, and they are good baits, cut or alive. We have read that they are a fair pan-fish .
They are easily caught with gold hook rigs and even can be caught on larger hooks that you are fishing for snapper with. They grow to around ten inches and should definitely be kept for bait if you catch them.
Written by admin on June 24th, 2007 with no comments.
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OFFSHORE
Deep water trips are providing fishermen with awesome action in some areas, the Middle Grounds have been very consistent. Amberjacks up to 50-pounds, a variety of snappers, and grouper are all common catches. The Steps are holding bonito, blackfin tunas, dolphin, wahoo, and sailfish.
Some shallow offshore hard bottom is holding red grouper in about the 80-foot depths southwest of Pinellas. Scattered Spanish mackerel and king mackerels from the artificial reefs off Pinellas, Manatee, and Sarasota Counties westward. Kings up to 20-pounds have been common. Permit have been taken from wrecks off Anna Maria out to 9-miles. Crabs have been the most productive bait for them.
INSHORE
Tarpon are still the target up and down the coast with great action just about everywhere in Suncoast waters. Anglers working the beaches in the early pre-dawn hours are having the most success. Arriving at least a half-hour prior to dawn will usually put you in position just in time for the bite to begin.
Trout anglers are finding some decent catches north of Palm Harbor. Slot-size fish are about the norm. Live shrimp are working, but the pinfish make it difficult to keep one on the hook. Artificial baits like jigs and topwaters are working well, but live baiters will find scaled sardines very effective.
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Large snappers were caught last weekend on the new moon tides all the way into Tampa Bay, but fish got progressively smaller in shallower depths.
Sailfish are on the horizon off Bradenton. Anglers reported hooking up with a sail in 120-feet of water west of Longboat Pass while bottom fishing for scamp, gag grouper, and amberjacks. The billfish hit live bait on a flat line.
INSHORE
Monster snook are prowling the troughs along the beaches from Manasota Key to Hudson. Terra Ceia angler, Weston Hayes, and friends reported seeing linesiders in the mid-forty inch range while fishing some pilings just off the beaches between Holmes Beach and Bradenton Beach. While they saw good numbers of fish, they couldn’t get the big spawners to eat.
Written by admin on June 22nd, 2007 with no comments.
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Pinfish are great bait for a wide variety of species; they are easy to catch and are found all over all shallow waters of our Sun-coast. Put a little bit of bait (squid works very well) on about a #2 or #4 hook and toss it over some grassy bottom - it won’t be long before the well is full of ‘pins. You can also chum them up with cat food and bread and throw a cast net over the whole lot - ‘pins are fast though, and often can run faster than the net can sink.
Pinfish are very hardy as baitfish go, often outliving everything else in your live-well. When handling them, watch out for the very sharp dorsal spines - they can really stick you good (that’s how they get their name). Hook them just under this fin and fish them with little or no weight inshore. Offshore, a live pinfish will often get grouper to bite when nothing else will. This is a great baitfish that will also give beginning fishermen a very nice tussle on super-light tackle (nice way to entertain the kids on a windy day).
Written by admin on June 21st, 2007 with no comments.
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Blue runner, hard tail jack, yellow jack, yellow mackerel and runner are all Caranx crysos. Whatever name you attach, they’re great bait for larger fish. They are very hardy in the bait-well and can swim surprisingly fast for long distances on the hook.
They commonly grow to 12-14 inches but are said to reach 20 inches. The only way to catch them is with hook and line. The most common rig used to catch them is the multiple gold hook set-up offered by several manufacturers that are attached to your line with a weight at the bottom. Slowly jig these around a wreck, on the edge of hard bottom, or around marker buoys. They commonly will hit just about anything.
Blue runners are also frequently found over sand bottom and in the surf line along the Gulf beaches. For the best results, use the rigs in a #8 to a #6 size(these are the larger hooks, and sometimes hard to find). The smaller #10s and #12s will work, but I find them easier to land using the larger sizes.
For trolling, hook the blue runner through the cartilage in the nose. If you’re using a larger ‘runner, add a “stinger” rig back towards the tail just pinned under the skin. These are very fast swimming fish, so be sure and watch your lines carefully. If you are trolling too slowly, you may find them crossing each other. If you are drifting or fishing from an anchored position, you will have to be working on them constantly to keep them from tangling each other. However you fish the blue runner, hang on tight, because they are great “big fish” bait.
Written by admin on June 21st, 2007 with no comments.
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Sand perch or squirrelfish (Diplectrum formosum), are excellent grouper bait. They also taste good, but their small size makes cleaning them too much trouble. They are a very pretty fish, with electric blue cheek lines and orange and blue sides.
They also have a large mouth and very sharp gill plates - so be careful when handling them. They can be caught on almost any sandy bottom and frequently on rocky bottom as well. You can usually just stop your boat and drop baits overboard and be into squirrelfish - but if you haven’t caught one in the first few minutes, move on to another spot.
When bottom fishing squirrelfish for grouper, just hook them through the back in front of the dorsal fin and lower them to the bottom. Then hold on tight, because grouper love to eat them. Sand perch are also good bait when filleted and used as chunks.
Written by admin on June 20th, 2007 with no comments.
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Ballyhoo There are three species in the Gulf of Mexico, Some mistakenly call them needlefish, but you can easily tell these two apart: the ballyhoo has a shorter upper jaw and the tip of its lower jaw is orange-red.
You can occasionally find them in our part of the Gulf in the summertime but they are not extremely abundant this far north (Tampa Bay). You can buy them frozen in most tackle stores and they are excellent bait for trolling. There are several ways to rig them for trolling, but probably the easiest is a plastic attachment that you can buy called a “hoo nose”.
There may be other brands available so call or write if you have a better one (and send me a sample of it, please.) They are an excellent bait for all species of fish that we troll for in this area, and if handled and rigged properly can be trolled faster than a live bait. This trait allows you to cover a larger area and maximize your fishing time.
Written by admin on June 19th, 2007 with no comments.
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