# Tampa Bay report x2



## skinny_water (Jun 11, 2008)

I have been fishing a couple time over the past couple weeks, but havn't really done a report. Fish are chewing better now then they have been all year! The water is warming and the fish are getting more agressive. Last week we took out a family member looking for his first Redfish. After a couple cast he hooks up with my first also...A tagged Redfish! Called the 1-800 number on the tag and gave them all the info. 32 1/2", 14lbs, healty, and location caught. For that he gets a free t-shirt in 4-6 weeks with a report card on how the fish has traveled.









Monday night I was able to sneak out for a trip targeting dock Snook on fly. We heard in the rumblings that some baby tarpon were showing up in the sub 20lb range. The weather wasn't great at all, post front 25mph winds. 

Launching at 7:30pm we made the run. We found several dock lights that were holding Snook. I had a EP mullet pattern in dark brown from Redfishing a couple weeks ago still on the fly rod. On the third cast it got crushed by a 14" Snooklet. First fish on that fly and it was distroyed. I tied another fly on and a couple cast later picked up another Snook. As soon as I would get them to the boat they would chew through the leader material. 

After we picked up a couple we started looking for the baby Tarpon. Traveling back in a canal system that more resembled a corn maze than anything else we found them! 3 15lb'ers swimming around 1 dock light. I made several cast at them and they didn't have a care in the world. Put it in front, back, on there nose, slam them, line them, dark flies, light flies, shrimp patterns, and baitfish patterns they didn't care. All they cared about was swimming the tight little circle around the light to show off there silvery addictive sides. Out of 50 or so dock lights we looked at that was the only one that was holding the poons. We left them NOT chewing... Good thing though is that these fish are not pressured due to there location, so I will go back there again...on another night, with another dozen patterns to try!

We picked up and looked for more Snooks. Every light we looked at had at least 5 fish on it with some holding 20+ Snook! Decided to keep looking for docks out of the wind. Picked up a couple more, lost a couple more flies... No pics of the fish cause I was actually fishing this time! Now I pay the price by having to refill the fly boxes of all the patterns that were scoring big on the Snookage! 

In the next couple days I will post up some pics of must have flies out of my vise for dock Snook. 

-Richard


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## james_bingham3 (Oct 22, 2009)

great report nice to hear our fishen is coming back pretty strong, still havent seen any snook in johns pass and tarpoon only there one night so far


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## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

That's a great red, especially for his first!  Pretty cool it was a tagged fish too.


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## mark_gardner (Mar 18, 2009)

nice report  that is pretty cool about the tagged fish and being able to track him  while your at the bench tieing flies you might want to consider wrapping one up that mimics a stick of dynomite  that might get their attention when the bites slow  ;D


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## rkmurphy (Nov 2, 2008)

A week from Thursday and I'm FREE. Well...for 2 weeks. Get ready Rich!


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## skinny_water (Jun 11, 2008)

> A week from Thursday and I'm FREE.  Well...for 2 weeks.  Get ready Rich!


After you help me move? I am sure we can work something out, lol.


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## deerfly (Mar 10, 2007)

dock light snookin' heating up? Now there's some serious fun.   Really nice red there too, btw.  Should be interesting to read the tag report...


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## PVredfisher (Jan 11, 2007)

Nice report, that is an awesome first red [smiley=headbang.gif]


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## Canoeman (Jul 23, 2008)

That's a fine report, a good fish and a photo to keep. From North Florida it's hard to sympathize with a guy who can "only" catch snook under the lights.


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## skinny_water (Jun 11, 2008)

> That's a fine report, a good fish and a photo to keep. From North Florida it's hard to sympathize with a guy who can "only" catch snook under the lights.


Ha, I can catch other Snook. I am a sucker for catching them on the beach. But there is something about watching 6 of them fight over your fly and watching them send bait fleeing for their lives!


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