Pinellas County
With weekly cold fronts coming through the Bay area, fishing the flats becomes difficult with higher winds that follow those fronts. An easy way to get around the wind is fishing areas that are protected by surrounding land and structure.
Muddy bottom means warmer water
A good place to start is the Cross Bayou in Pinellas County. You can find many species of fish around this area because there is a nice muddy bottom and warmer water. Fish species range from sheepshead, redfish and trout, to snook and juvenile tarpon. I recommend this area to anglers that fish out of smaller flats boats and/or canoes and kayaks, due to the shallow water.
Our Trip to Cross Bayou
I was able to fish Cross Bayou yesterday with a good friend of mine named Ethan. We set out on a strictly fly fishing mission. On the way into the Bayou we saw a group of people on an outside oyster bar with their canoe beached on top of it fishing for sheepshead. I noticed they had one person flipping over larger oyster clusters and finding small crabs that lived under them and were using that as their bait. In just a few minutes of us passing, I watched one gentleman land two nice larger size sheepshead. Once we arrived at the canal we saw a lot of activity going on. Mullet schools were cruising the shorelines, ladyfish were going nuts on little glass minnow schools in the middle, and every half hour or so we saw a tarpon come up and roll. We tried for the tarpon first but after landing a dozen lady fish and going through 5 flies and 10' of leader we decided to give up on that. We then proceeded poling down the shoreline fishing the mangroves looking for the reaction strike. Not even 15 minutes of me poling, Ethan managed to trick a smaller snook into eating one of his custom tied EP baitfish patterns. We landed the fish quickly and revived the little guy to fight another day. Ethan and I switched spots and immediately I hooked into my first snook of the day and got the fish boat side. We did this another four times and we ended up with 8 smaller snook and called it a day.
