# 12-1 South Shore Tampa Bay



## skinny_water (Jun 11, 2008)

I knew exactly what was going to happen today.  It's the last day of fishing before the front, with a super neg low tide (-0.6) at sunrise.  It was a recipe for multiple servings of Redfish Tails.  I got up super early to make sure I was there for the sunrise, just incase the tide charts were wrong, and ended up finding that they were right on schedule.  There was 9" of water missing everywhere.  The beach that I usually launch at was 30ft farther away from the ramp!










I started to paddle...well tried to paddle because it was even to shallow to do that!  Navigating to my area ended up taking an extra 15 minutes do to not being able to use shortcuts.  The birds were standing on dry grass where I usually poll the Lostmen on the "low" tides.  Add to that the other great part of waking up super early!




























Once I was able to get to my hunting grounds there were no signs of tailers yet.  The sun was getting higher and starting to worry me that I wouldn't see any.  And start to smell something that smells like fiberglass burning.  Looking around for a couple minutes I see a faint smoke just behind the tree line.  It looked like someone was smoking some mullet...but then 2 minutes later...full blown fire  










Got to watch that for a couple minutes and rig the rods for some blind casting the mullet schools.  And about 100 yards away I see something that may be what I am looking for...



















The tailers were all around 5lbs, with a couple getting closer to 10.  They were crusing around in singles and a couple doubles.  But they were all in an area of about 30ft x 100ft with a total of 30 or so fish working in that area.  I wanted to stick one on fly, but every shot I would take they would spook.  I started with a Borski Slider.  They would spook when that landed within 2ft of them.  Next fly was a TK Special.  They would let it land, but would spook when I gave it the pop out of the grass.  Crabs, Kwans, Toads...all got the same reaction.  I ended up switching all the way down to a #4 Seaducer in Light Tan with 12lb mono leader.  I would cast it out and let it sit on the surface untill they started moving in the direction of the fly.  When the reds were about 10" from the fly I would give it the 2" pull to drop in from the surface tension...and GOOSH...gone!  Just from it breaking the surface tension!  The tide started to really come in and the fish started to school up.  There is about 10 fish in this picture with one tailer.










I wanted to take up a new hobbie and do the standing paddle and polling with the Wang.  It took some getting used to but once I got the hang of it, it was a breeze.  It gave me tons of extra visability.

Polling down the flat I noticed something that looked like a school of mullet, but it was moving twice as fast and the wakes were twice as big.  I stuck the Wang Anchor and made the longest cast possible towards the wake, wishing it was a school of Reds.  I started working the bronze spoon and saw a pretty 10lb Red sitting just off the bow.  I quickly cranked in the spoon to take a shot at the Red.  Staring at the Red and reeling as fast as I can to get the shot off I'm wondering where my spoon was and look back at it.  It was about 20ft away from the boat with 4 Reds following it HOT!  I had thrown it in the school of reds...and apparently pissed them off real good, lol.  I quickly slowed my retrive...and the spit spooking the other red on the bow of the yak.  I now know to work every cast, lol.

I spun around and paddled out of the area the school was spotted and set up for them to come around again.  I re-rigged a DOA paddle tail for a slower presentation.  Standing up in the Yak I spotted the school again about 20 minutes later, and made a short cast.  Two twiches later it was game on!  I reeled the Red all the way to the Yak, and put the rod in the rod holder so I could get down out of the Standing position.  I was in about 2ft of water so I though, hey just get out of the Yak and take a pretty picture of the fish.  I go to step out of the yak...and find out that really it was about 4ft of water.  This clear water is deceiving!  The yak slid out from under me...and I went for a swim.  Thankfully the Camera was sitting in the cup holder and not around my neck!  Snapped a couple pics and did the right thing...










The weather started to change and the wind picked up.  Called it and headed back to the ramp, standing paddle the whole way!  It's tons of fun!

-Richard


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## LoneRanger (Dec 11, 2006)

great report, nice pics!


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## tom_in_orl (Dec 9, 2006)

Very nice pics. I enjoyed the post [smiley=1-thumbsup3.gif]


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## GatorDebaiter (Jan 20, 2008)

Awesome Report! For some reason I though you fished the east coast...? keep em coming.


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## PVredfisher (Jan 11, 2007)

Awesome pics! And Awesome report [smiley=headbang.gif]


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## Alonzo_Sotillo (Oct 9, 2009)

Very nice Richard!!


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## anytide (Jul 30, 2009)

skinny_ has all the fun  ;D ,, hope to see ya soon 
-anytide


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## iMacattack (Dec 11, 2006)

Great pix! Thanks for sharing!


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## snookermanjeff (Jun 2, 2009)

Very nice report and pic's give's me hope that they do bite!


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## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

Those are some fantastic pictures, and a good story too. Thanks for sharing with us. [smiley=1-thumbsup1.gif]


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## dacuban1 (Sep 9, 2008)

Great report and pics. thx for sharing.


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## Big_Fish (Dec 10, 2006)

Very cool! But what was burning?


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## james_bingham3 (Oct 22, 2009)

brave man i dropped the wife off around 9:00am thought abut going out then looked at the radar and went back to bed
nice fish


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## skinny_water (Jun 11, 2008)

Thanks Everyone!

No clue what was burning, it was the same day they found the 3yo 120 miles out in the sailboat.  You know how if it's not an arson they don't report it anymore, my guess was a boat on a trailer in the marina.  Smelled like fiberglass, burned HOT for about 15 minutes and was out. But you can guess the size of it because most of those sailboats in there are in the 30-50ft class!


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## james_bingham3 (Oct 22, 2009)

> brave man i dropped the wife off around 9:00am thought abut going out then looked at the radar  and went back to bed
> nice fish


sorry thought you went out today


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## islander1225 (Jun 15, 2008)

I AM GONNA TAKE A WILD GUESS AND SAY THIS IS YOUR FIBERGLASS YOU SMELT BURNING, IT WAS NEAR BEER CAN ISLAND.

http://firegeezer.com/2009/05/10/pleasure-boat-explosion-injures-13/


aLEX


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## skinny_water (Jun 11, 2008)

Not it, it was something on dry land up in the marina.


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## orlgheenoer (Dec 10, 2006)

NICE DUDE!!!!


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## tom_in_orl (Dec 9, 2006)

Tragic


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