Tampa Bay is known to be one of the greatest inshore sport fishing estuaries on the Gulf coast. It has numerous, highly sough after sport fish. Snook, redfish and tarpon probably get the most notoriety. Snook are great to eat but you can only keep one and it must measure inside an increasing small slot limit and you can only keep them during certain times of the year. Redfish are great grilled or blackened and they have a generous slot size but again you can only keep one per angler per day. So what are you to do when you want to have a fish fry or cookout and you want fish on the menu? That’s when you turn to Tampa Bay’s tasty, toothy table fair.
What are they?
Mangrove snapper, spanish mackerel and speckled sea trout.
When can you catch them?
You can catch any of these year ’round but inshore, spanish mackerel and mangrove snapper hit their prime in the summer time. The best time of year for trout, hands down, is in the wintertime but you can still get some keeper fish in the warmer months ( Closed to harvest in Nov. and Dec. in the South Region and closed to harvest in Feb in the N.W. and N.E. region. Click here for more info )
Where can you catch them in the Bay?
Mangrove snapper love structure. The Port Manatee artificial reefs are on fire with nice size snapper right now. All of the rock piles lining the main shipping channel in Tampa Bay and anywhere along the Sunshine Skyway bridge is a great place to check out for keeper snapper. You can also find them around docks and oyster bars. Spanish mackerel will hold around structure too, like the giant tripod range markers in the bay, but you can also look for the birds congregating along the main shipping channel. If you see a cloud of birds hovering and diving near deep water, there’s a safe bet there are mackerel under those birds. Idle up to the commotion you see in the air and you’re bound to see mackerel skyrocket out of the water as they crash bait. Trout can be caught nearly everywhere that there is clean water in the Bay. Grass flats, residential canals, oyster bars…etc. But in the summer time, concentrate your efforts on the deeper grass flats that have great tidal flow to get your keep trout.
How do you catch them?
For Mackerel and snapper, you can’t beat scaled sardines or threadfin herring for bait. Mackerel will also readily eat a silver spoon and soft plastic jigs and snapper will occasionally eat various artificial lures but I’ve had most of my success fishing for them with sardines and theadfins. One thing to keep in mind is that both of these fish respond to chumming very very well. When you get to a spot that you believe holds snapper or mackerel, drop a chum block over the side of the boat. For mackerel, drop the chum block over the side without any weight on it. I have the best results with using a chum block for snapper by tying the chum block to the anchor and then dropping them both together. An even better cumming method, and the one I prefer, is to use the actual bait you caught that morning for chum. If I’m chasing after mackerel or snapper, I will make sure I load up on sardines or threadfins; so much so that I will fill my livewells to the brim and then I will fill a 5 gallon bucket with more. I’ll chum with a few live baits form the livewell and then I’ll also start cutting up the dead ones in the five gallon bucket and use them for chum. Both of these fish will respond better to small baits. Mangroves will sometimes even respond to half of a dead bait the best. You’ll have to experiment a little to see which is working best that day. For mackerel you’re best results will come using heavy mono or flurocarbon leader with a extra long shank 1/0 or 2/0 hook and be sure to free line your baits weightless behind the boat. You can use steel leader for them but they tend to shy away when they can see the leader in clear water. I would suggest not using a swivel with any setup as mackerel will often strike at it resulting in their sharp teeth cutting you off regardless of whether or not your using steel leader or not. For mangrove snapper I would suggest using 12-20lb mono or flurocarbon leader with a #1 or 1/0 circle hook ( I believe that you must use circle hooks now by law, whether you are in state or federal waters, while fishing for mangrove snapper. Double check your regulations. ) Use enough weight to get your bait to the bottom. You can use a swivel between your leader and mainline while having your weight riding on the mainline. However, if the tide is ripping, put the weight on the leader and let it ride against your hook. This will keep your bait from wildly spinning in the current. Now, as far as trout goes, use soft plastic lure, sardines, threadfins, topwater plugs… the list goes on. Use about two feet of 20lb leader and 1/16-1/4oz, jigheads for soft plastics and #1-2/0 circle hooks with live bait. If you’re fishing over grass, use a bobber to keep your live bait from getting tangled in the grass. Each spot is different but in most places I prefer to fish the incoming tide for speckled sea trout in the Tampa Bay area.
How many can you keep?
Click here to check out the local regulations. (.pdf)
How do we cook them?
Spanish Mackerel: Click here
Mangrove Snapper: Click here
Speckled sea trout: Click here
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