How’s this for variety? This month, so far, we’ve caught redfish, snook, trout, spanish mackerel, blacktip sharks, lemon sharks, bonita, ladyfish, tarpon, gag grouper, mangrove snapper, ladyfish and cobia. Summer time really is the time to see how many species of fish you can get in one day. The waters are alive with hatch-ling baits and the fish know it’s dinner time.

We get into some redfish, snook and trout at times but the real show is in open water where the speed demons of the bay like bonito, mackerel and sharks are crashing baits. Often times acres of whitewater can be seen in the distance as these fish are breaching the surface attacking the small baits in massive schools.

Getting on the water early is key right now. Not just for the fish but for the fishermen as well. It is rather warm out there by midday and afternoon storms are the norm here in teh Tampa Bay area of Florida. If you’re game for it, I’ll take you along with me to catch bait around sunrise and then we’re off to the fishing grounds.

The next couple of months are you best bet of the year for catching many types of fish. If you’re up for tarpon, they’re still around and active. You just need to pick days with good tides.

This story is too long and awesome to be able to even begin to tell it all, but I’ll do my best to give you as many details as possible.

25 years ago the Hill family and my family became fast friends. I grew up spending my summers with Josh, Travis, Mandy and Lindsy Hill (the Hill children). 13 years ago the New York Yankees drafted me and I moved to Tampa to play baseball. Tampa Bay just so happened to be the Hill family’s favorite place to vacation. When baseball didn’t work out, I chased after my second passion, fishing, and became a full time fishing guide. The Hill’s, who love the outdoors and camping, found out I was guiding and have chartered me every year from day one of my fishing career. Over the years we’ve caught redfish, snook, trout, snapper…. and this year we planned on fishing for the same fish. But then yesterday, I had a good day tarpon fishing but a slow day fishing for snook, redfish and trout. So I called the Hills last night and asked them if they would like to chase after BIG fish.

They said they were game. So… the full moon this week is producing a “hill tide” in the afternoons. A hill tide is when we have only one leaving tide in a day and it is a big one. I told them that there was no reason to go fishing until after 2pm because the tide wouldn’t start moving real well until late afternoon. The game plan was set.

I picked up Bobby (Lindsey’s husband), Travis (the youngest Hill son), Jeff (the dad) and a new guy named Landis (Mandy’s fiance… not sure of how to spell his name) a little after 2pm and stopped at a small bridge to pick up some threadfin herring to use as bait until the crabs would start showing up (due to the huge tide later in the afternoon). Once we had a 5 dozen (or so) threadfins, we headed off to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in search of tarpon.

We fished for an hour with nothing really going on and I kept telling them to be patient because when we start seeing the crabs floating by, the bite would turn on. A buddy of mine came by in his boat and he gave us some crabs he had caught the day before and we tied a few on. The first drift, with our precious gifts on the line, produced the first heart racing scream of the drag on Landis’s reel. Fish on! Landis didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he signed up for this trip and as the 115lb+ fish jumped and made long runs he was grinning from ear to ear. At least for a little while. He didn’t know the fight was going to last 30 minutes. 10 minutes into th efight he realized that this was going to take some work on his part to land the fish. Finally and about of gallon of sweat and a lot of muscle fatigue we had the first fish boatside for pics (coming soon from the Hill’s camera).

As we idled back to the bridge, we started seeing the crabs passing by. So we grabbed the net and scooped up 8 or so and threw them in the well. On teh very next drift through the bridge, I hear Jeff say, “Uh oh!” When I turn around I see his rod bowed over and I hear the drag screaming. The fish began jumping and making it’s way through and around a few pilings. Jeff fought the fish as it jumped around pilings and made a few long runs but he soon wore out due to recovering from sergery a few months earlier. So, he handed the rod off to his son travis who whipped the fish in about 20 minutes. Pics coming soon.

We hooked thre more fish over the next couple of hours and each time the rod was handed off to Bobby because he had yet to feel the power of a tarpon pulling on the line. Each time he took the rod the fish jumped and spit the hook. Eevrybody began ragging on his that he doing something wrong or that it just wasn’t meant to be for him to get one.

Bobby made up for it at the end of the day. Travis hooked a fish and handed it off to Bobby and this fish took him for a ride. 1 hour, 3 bridge pilings, 2 cargo ships and 2 miles later, bobby boated the biggest fish of the day. A solid 125lb+ silver king. We took a couple of pics, revived the fish and headed for the dock.

I’ve known Jeff and his family since I was 8 years old. Each and every time I take them fishing I urge them to not pay me but they always insist. The money is always appreciated and it truly is a blessing to me and my family but it isn’t worth anything compared to the words he shared with me at the end of the day as we idled the boat back up to the dock. He said,  “Clay, I think this just might be the most exciting and fun day of my entire life. I’ll remember this day as long as I live.”

It took a good bit of work to get our first tarpon of the year this year but we did it this past weekend. We put some long hours in and after seeing everyone around us hook up all afternoon, we decided that there was just some kind of funk on the boat. We hadn’t had a bite for four hours. We decided to stick it out until we got one and the decision paid off. Just as everyone else was leaving, we hooked up with out first fish. It was a large fish that we got one jump out of and she spit the hook. 10 minutes later we got our second hookup and this fish went nuts jumping all over the place. It took us around the boat before we could even unhook from the anchor and broke us off. The third fish came 10 minutes after the 2nd and it tail walked for about 50 yards before spitting the hook. The fourth bite came a few minutes later and jumped on the initial bite and spit the hook. It was getting a little frustrating that nothing was working out for us. I mean earlier in the day we couldn’t buy a bite and now we were getting bit every 10 minutes and we couldn’t keep a fish buttoned on. Just as we were talking about our luck that day, the line started screaming off of a reel. The rod was picked up and the fish jumped… and it stayed hooked up! We threw the anchor rope over the side of the boat and I went to crank the motor and the motor wouldn’t start!!! Dead battery! So now I’m thinking, “Wow, we just can’t catch a break”. So I dropped the trolling motor and we chased the fish with that instead of the outboard. We licked out and the fish stayed away from structure and after 3 more jumps and 25 minutes, we had our first tarpon of the season boat side.

Side note: I added a second cranking battery to the boat today so we won’t have anymore battery issues this summer.

There’s no denying it now. Spring weather is here and Spring fishing has followed suit. Redfish have been the main targets as they are huge schools in the St. Petersburg area. Hitting them on high water with live sardines has been the key. We’ve had to show patience when looking for them when the tide wasn’t right. They really have been hard to find or hard to get to eat when the tide has been low. But when the tide came up, it was a whole different ball game. They showed up in hude numbers and they brought their appetites with them.

Trout are still biting in good numbers if table fair is what you’re after. We’re seeing more of the smaller “summer” sized trout but getting some keepers for dinner isn’t hard if that’s what you’re after.

Snook are popping up everywhere right now as they are beggining their migration to the beach. Some fish are already on the beach but we haven’t targeted them there yet. We’re getting most of our shots at them in their transition spots like spoil islands and the flats.

Tarpon are showing up in the St. Petersburg area. We haven’t targeted them yet but we will starting next week.Spanish mackerel are all over the Sunshine Skyway and surrounding areas and they make great fun for kids and adults alike.  There is no shortage of fish right now and the weather can’t be beat. Let’s go fishing!

It’s been a really windy spring thus far. It seems as though the wind just won’t quit. Windy days are usually bad fishing days and we’ve had to adapt to make sure that we succeed. Luckily for us, the fish haven’t been phased. We’ve been able to find fish in protected areas from the wind and on occasion, we’ve thumbed our nose at the wind and caught fish while battling the chop on the water.

Right now, redfish are schooled up big time in the St. Petersburg area. Finding them has not been hard at all. The hard part is finding fish that are willing to eat. To do that we’ve had to find fish in deeper water. The fish that are in less than two feet of water are skittish and just wont eat. That’s tough for us because they are the most visible fish. Some of these schools hold 500 or more fish in them. But you can waste a lot of time looking at them if you are disciplined enough to go after smaller groups of fish that are more comfortable in deeper water. Which is what we did last week. Clients were treated to days of over 30 over slot redfish by going after fish that we couldn’t see but we could get to eat.

Trout on the other hand have been biting well in really shallow water. The bigger fish have been in the New Port Richey area in less than two feet of water. To get the bite going well you need to chum them up a lot with free sardines. We’ve been getting trout from 18-25″ regularly.

Snook are starting to make a show of themselves but they still aren’t a main target. We did get a few keepers in the Tarpon springs area but look for it to be a few more weeks of warm weather before we can target them successfully.

Tarpon season is right around the corner. If you’ve wanted to catch a tarpon this is your chance. I’ll be running tarpon charters from the St. Pete area all the way down to “World Famous Boca Grande” in Charlotte Harbor. Book your trip today for a chance at the “Silver King”.

I hope you guys like the new fishing report. I’ll be using my blog for reports from here on out for a couple of reasons. One is that it’s easier for me to post reports and the other is that you can subscribe to my blog and you’ll get email notifications when I post a new report.

See you soon! Let’s go fishing!

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