Don came here from Minnesota and booked a 4hr trip with me. He said, ” I would like to catch a couple of snook.”  So I ran to a spot where the snook have been biting and Don caught his couple of snook x 10. We stayed at that spot the entire trip and he caught snook after snook for 4hrs. 

George, Sarah and Mike joined me for a Tampa fishing charter in Ruskin. We had a low incoming tide in the morning, so the first location we fished was a large pot hole. Mike landed the first and second snook and the snook were starting to bust on ever chum thrown. The bite then came to a sudden stop when a boat ran his outboard over the hole. So we headed to our second spot which was a narrow pass. George then turned in to a Snook Catching Machine, landing a snook about every other cast. He was casting a freelined greenback about an inch from the mangroves and slowly reeling it, getting hit during the retrieve. I don’t know how many fish George and Mike caught but it was alot and I do know they were very happy with the trip.

I took Rusty Flook , his wife and two of their friends out for a halfday fishing charter.  Rusty hires me several times each year, so he knows the best way to book a charter is to let me pick the location and the time of the charter , according to where and when the fish have been biting the best.  So, we started the trip from Simmons Park in Ruskin at 1pm.  Once we reached our first spot, the tide was rushing in. It didn’t take long before the first snook was caught and for the  rest of the day we didn’t move. I would throw a couple dozen greenbacks out for chum, about every 5 minutes and the ones that weren’t eaten by  terns and/or seagulls were snook candy. Rusty and his party caught around  35-45 snook and  a couple of nice redfish.

The trip for today started from the Simmons park area in Ruskin. The first spot we went to was a deep grass flats and we were targeting trout. Drifting the flats, throwing Gulp shrimp (new penny color) produced several trout. During high tide we moved to the mangroves and started using greenbacks under a cork. The bite was slow but Tom was able to catch 2 snook and 1 redfish. Once the tide started dropping I headed for a sanding spot along the shoreline, I threw a dozen greenbacks toward the shoreline and the water erupted. Sue threw toward the explosion and she hooked up instantly to a nice snook. Tom and Sue continued to catch snook for about 1 1/2 hours. The trip was over and we left the snook biting for another day. 

Redfish are eating the best during low tides, they are in potholes and eating shrimp and pinfish. During high tides the reds scatter out, over the grass flats and under the mangroves. During high tides the trout are eating very good, on live shrimp and many different plastic baits.

 Redfish were  stacked up in the potholes today, but we only got a few of them to eat.  The ones that did eat were all quality fish 25 to 28 inches.  We also caught a good number of trout.