Tis the season

December is the time that I finally put the cast net away for a few months, and get into full swing with the artificial. When the water chills our inshore species begin to refine their diet, small bait fish that are not as abundant as a month ago, are replaced by shrimp, crabs, and small clams. The fish become a little more consistent in their patterns, and when we get the warm afternoon sun it can be magical. The main targets will be Redfish and Speckled Trout, and both will run the flats in large schools. This is time of year you want to find the lowest tides you can and concentrate on the holes and troughs that dot our shores, as this will be where the fish take refuge until the tide floods.

Redfish

As we get into December the number of reds seems to just keep growing. This has been a banner year for numbers of fish in our area. As the water cools down the reds will start to look for warm areas in the mornings and spread out on the flats as the sun warms the water. You should adjust your fishing game plan to fish where the fish are. Look for oyster bars, rock jetties, and shallow mud bottoms in the morning, and the flats with a lot of sandy edges as the sun rises. One thing I always look for in the winter is a lot of wading birds on a flat, they will be eating the same thing that the reds are looking for. Some of the best areas to look at are the flats both north and south of Green Key, Sand bay, and the flats around the Anclote power plant. Our barrier islands are some of the best places to fish for reds this time of year. They all have shallow flats with lots of sand that will get very shallow on our winter lows. Caladesi, Three Rooker, and Anclote islands are great places to fish on a low incoming tide as the reds will start to tail up as the dig for crabs and worms.

Trout

November gets our trout fishing started but December is prime time. The same barrier islands that hold good numbers of reds will hold even better numbers of trout, and while you will find trout cruising the grass most will be laid up on the edge of most sand holes waiting to ambush anything that moves by. The trout do not seem to mind the cooler mornings and if you get a nice calm morning there is no better time to throw a top water and watch the trout knock it around. Look to the deeper edges of the flats inside of Three Rooker and Caladisi and you should find plenty of slot sized fish, If you are looking for the big girls (4+ Lbs.) think like a redfish. Most of the big trout will be in loose schools around oyster and rock. One of my favorite areas to catch big trout consistently is north of Hudson from Sea Pines to Filimans bayou, just watch for the rocks, as they are plentiful. We are lucky to have the area split in two as far as closed season for trout, to be safe anything south of the Anclote river is closed Nov.and Dec. and north of the Anclote is closed Feb.

Snook

December will see very few snook outside the rivers and canals of the north suncoast area. Both the Cottee and Anclote rivers will have good numbers of snook in the upper reaches of their head waters. Look for bends in the rivers that get deep and have decent current and you could find the mother lode. I like to cover a lot of water when fishing this way so I will troll with my trolling motor and pull a deep diving plug through the deeper areas. You can live bait these fish but it will usually have to be with a large wild shiner. Most of the canals in our area will also hold good numbers of fish this time of year, look for canals that catch a lot of sun through out the day as this will warm the water and make inactive fish active. The canals in Gulf harbors are all deep and will hold fish, also the canals at the start of the Klostermen Channel have plenty of deep water to hold fish through the winter. Remember December 15 is the last day to catch and keep your snook.

Best of the rest

December is a good month to just get out and stretch you line, there will be an abundance of Ladyfish in both the Anclote and Cottee rivers with lots of fish at the outfall canal of the Anclote power plant. The warm water of the Anclote plant will also attract many other species like Jacks, Bluefish, Trout, Sheephead, and some Cobia. All of these fish can be caught on a plain old ¼ oz jig with an Exude Dart, or live shrimp.

For fishing charters in the north Suncoast region contact Capt. Greg DeVault at 1-888-557-1885 or captgregd@yahoo.com

This winter has been par with the last 3 or 4.The fishing has been getting better and better, during the winter I specilize in shallow water fishing witch means catching fish in the pot holes and troughs when the extream low tide catches them there.During the month of January I run trips in the tarpon springs and Charlotte harbor areas. In Tarpon springs we were useing my 2300 Ranger and 169 Ghost, fishing the anclote area and avreging 50 to 70 trout a day along with 20 to 30 redfish most of the reds were under 20 inches but the trout were avreging about 3lbs. Around the full and new moon tide I take the airboat and head south to Charlotte harbor were we drive across dry ground and get to fish that have been land locked by the low tides, this allows us to go hole to hloe and catch fish, it is as close to fishing in a barrle as you can get.Our average day consists of 60 to 70 redfish and this years warming trends in between the fronts allowed for higher than normal snook counts as we were catching 15 to 20 snook per trip, and all the trout you could stand. During the winter I use 90 percent artifical. We will have about three more week of this type of fishing so get your waders and if you cant float to the holes walk to them.

This Weeks's Fishing Report What a beautiful week this was. It almost seemed like we were back in a Florida summer instead of the tropical rainforest weather that we’ve had for the past few months. Offshore fishing picked up, mainly because the weather allowed everyone to go out more than one day last week. Grouper, triggerfish, mangrove snapper, grunts, porgies, amberjack, barracuda and plenty of Spanish mackerel were biting in waters from 45 to 80 feet deep. Those that ventured farther out brought back some big grouper and red snapper but they traveled a long way for them. The weekend brought some wind and high seas for offshore anglers but the forecasts look good again for the first part of the coming week. Reds are just jumping in the boat this week. Most of them are really big. Anglers have to fish for several hours just to get a keeper because there are so many of the oversized fish. The Port Manatee area and the artificial reefs are producing lots of mangrove snapper and there have been some nice pompano caught near the Skyway. Trout are still biting on the flats around Cockroach Bay, primarily in the deeper grass flat areas. The bait shrimp are finally getting up to a nice size but the greenbacks are still scarce. Some nice mangrove snapper are coming in from the Gandy Bridge. A few cobia have been caught this week and some black drum in the 20 pound class were caught around the bridge pilings. Snapper, grouper, jacks, some Spanish mackerel, and sheepshead have all come from our gas docks this week. Mangrove snapper are really biting well. Spanish mackerel are biting well and some nice keeper grouper have come in. Some really nice trout have been brought in. Pompano are really biting well, some as big as 15 inches. The best bets for the Spanish mackerel are still Gotcha Plugs and for pompano Doc’s Goofy Jigs.