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I am Tampa for a few days fishing with my friend, guide Neil Taylor of Strike Three Kayak Fishing. I caught a new-to-me species on both trips so far.
Yesterday we spent 3.5 hours jigging light lures around bridge pilings with little to show for it. My only catch of the day was a small (but sharp-looking) spadefish.
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Today we spent several hours casting to depressions in shallow grass flats. We launched at sunrise after watching a light show in the clouds on the drive down. Neil's radar showed that the storm clouds were not close and were not moving in our direction.
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After 15 minutes of paddling we anchored up on the edge of a 4-6 ft hole. I started casting a 1/8-oz jighead with a 12 Fathom Slam-R plastic lure and quickly caught a dozen speckled trout. That was lots of fun. Then I hooked an aerobatic ladyfish. Shortly after that I hooked up with the strongest fish I have caught to date from my kayak. The fish hit and immediately ran, stripping out line for a long time. I tried getting back some line, but the fish was relentless. Neil initially thought I had a large spec, but as it kept powering along, he revised his guess to a large snook. Both of those guesses were wrong. After nearly 15 mins of fighting the fish, we got a 38" black tip shark to the boat. It was caught on the same small lure as the trout and the ladyfish. I was using a 7-ft medium rod spooled with 10-lb braid.
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Needless to say, I was pretty excited. After some photos, the fish was placed in the cooler. I am having dinner at Neil's house -- trout fish spread and black tip shark steaks and probably a few beers.
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As the sun climbed higher, the bite slowed down. I caught one more spec on the flats. About 10:00, we began drifting along the boat channel jigging the same small lures we used the previous day at the bridge. This proved to be fast action on small fish (silver trout, ladyfish, grunts, pinfish) for a while. By 11:00, the bite had stopped so we called it quits early.
Yesterday we spent 3.5 hours jigging light lures around bridge pilings with little to show for it. My only catch of the day was a small (but sharp-looking) spadefish.
001.jpg
Today we spent several hours casting to depressions in shallow grass flats. We launched at sunrise after watching a light show in the clouds on the drive down. Neil's radar showed that the storm clouds were not close and were not moving in our direction.
001.jpg 002.jpg
After 15 minutes of paddling we anchored up on the edge of a 4-6 ft hole. I started casting a 1/8-oz jighead with a 12 Fathom Slam-R plastic lure and quickly caught a dozen speckled trout. That was lots of fun. Then I hooked an aerobatic ladyfish. Shortly after that I hooked up with the strongest fish I have caught to date from my kayak. The fish hit and immediately ran, stripping out line for a long time. I tried getting back some line, but the fish was relentless. Neil initially thought I had a large spec, but as it kept powering along, he revised his guess to a large snook. Both of those guesses were wrong. After nearly 15 mins of fighting the fish, we got a 38" black tip shark to the boat. It was caught on the same small lure as the trout and the ladyfish. I was using a 7-ft medium rod spooled with 10-lb braid.
IMAG0002.jpg IMAG0010.jpg
Needless to say, I was pretty excited. After some photos, the fish was placed in the cooler. I am having dinner at Neil's house -- trout fish spread and black tip shark steaks and probably a few beers.
004.jpg 005.jpg
As the sun climbed higher, the bite slowed down. I caught one more spec on the flats. About 10:00, we began drifting along the boat channel jigging the same small lures we used the previous day at the bridge. This proved to be fast action on small fish (silver trout, ladyfish, grunts, pinfish) for a while. By 11:00, the bite had stopped so we called it quits early.
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