Slow for us a well. I think the wind against the tide really screwed up the time. The tide change was supposed to be around 11 but really didn't change until about 2. Still a good day on the water, and I'm glad we left the skyway when we did. A rain storm followed us in, but we were wet anyway from the seas. I'm going to start a new thread tomorrow for fishing next saturday unless someone beats me to it. Talking with Gary yesterday, the plan(for now) is to hit the beaches of Anna Maria, Egmont and possibly Ft Desoto. I'll confirm with Gary and try to help him get everyone on the same page for Saturday.

Well we started getting luck at one spot then kinda copying a guy we saw Hooking alot up . Outgoing tide his boat was on the southside of the skyway. 300 yards + from the dolphins south. He anchored about 100' east of the bridge dropping his bait near the shadow line on the east side of the bridge.

This guy was really good.

Oh and Bob, me , and eric will be ready for next Saturday.

Once again I want to thank Tim and family for letting us go fishing on their boat. These are just truly GOOD people! The fishing was great again but no tarpon hook ups this time but I think Tim and I learned a couple new tricks. We had Fla Barry with us also, he was a trooper. We could have stayed out there for weeks and he would just fishing. Barry losing his rod was such a heartbreaker for me. If I had money I would get him a new setup. (Barry) if you decide to go next week I will loan you my other rod. My son Caleb was the jackpot winner with the most and largest fish caught. He even caught what looked to be a baby barracuda while catching bait. Its hard to tell that small but the big round teeth looked just like an adult cuda but smaller. Caleb ended up with 2 nice Macs and 2 sharks all on his own. Hopefully we get another shot next week for another hookup or maybe even a landing. I think we need Dawn and JJ to bring the luck back. I will try to attach a couple pix again.

Love it!!!! I'm so glad that Caleb caught so many fish and that picture with the Skyway in the background is awesome!! I feel the same way about Barry's sacrifice to Davy Jones's locker, but maybe it will bring incredible luck to Barry. If anyone wants to chip in $10, I'm going to start a collection to get Barry a new rig. Holy Mackerel tackle has an identical set up to JJ's rod, which is a Penn Fierce 6000 and a quantum Big Cat rod that's medium heavy 20-50 lb. for those who are wondering about Barry's misfortune, he was trying to get unhung from the bottom and the rod just slingshotted out of his hands and down it went.

dkknaebel wrote:
Dawn.......thank you but a collection isn't necessary. If I decide to try for tarpon next weekend I'll just bite the bullet a little harder and get another outfit. Might stop at Holy Mackerel and get the setup that JJ has. I am going out tomorrow afternoon with Chef Davie (and maybe Capt. John Baty) from the CapMel forum and he's letting me use one of his tarpon setups. I'll see how it goes and then decide. I really appreciate the offer and Chris's, too. Y'all are the best!! :)

Thanks,
Barry

Put me down for 20 bucks for the Barry setup . If I dropped my new rig I might cry so I feel your pain .

Marshil.......that's a mighty nice offer but I would rather see you put that towards a track day. I know how much you enjoy racing. Appreciate it more than you would know. :)

When me and Captain Crisp and Chris and Jarrod's friend Gerrit (just back from God Only Knows where dangerous bullet-ridden hell hole fixing army vehicles from those that fly to those that swim) got to the bridge, a boat two pilings away from us jumped four in a row. One over 150lbs. As we watched.

We got there with no dead bait and never saw a crab. The tide changed, got flat, and started POURING out. Every single thing that should have happened happened. Except the fish eating. They were all around us the entire time. Once the tide turned, I finally found bait. I had to put the sabikis up-tide, and let them fall. They filled up. Until then we could not get lucky with bait. I took one lizard fish off the bottom in the first half hour. Then a few baits here and there and we got them in the water fast. Nothing. Fish rolling and not eating really.

But those four fish that boat hooked up with were all on the very end of the incoming. And as the tide started going out the barometer started rising, and rising hard. It was that barometer more than anything that put that bite down. I was watching the moon last night and thinking I would love to be there on an incoming tide late tonight.

Does anybody wanna put their boat in the water? I would go. We need dead shad. There was not one crab passing by the five hours we sat that flood outgoing either.

IT's why they call it fishing for tarpon and not catching them. But like I have said, many of you have learned a LOT about the things you have to do. It's time on the water now that will put the swabs in the hands of FWC. I was gonna fish the Anclote beaches tomorrow with Jarrod and the team, but the wind's gonna be 15-20 out of the west. Not good to be sitting on that open-water side. I do not like to fish in big wind if I can avoid it. Tournaments, maybe. Just fishing, nah.

I have a very important meeting this Friday and really cannot spend that much time -- definitely not thursday night.

We can either fish our beaches or the Anclotte beaches. I would like to use Anclotte as a teaching location, but maybe not for this weekend. I really think we should add a couple of weeks onto the whole school idea, because if I cannot get ON a boat this weekend I do not want to miss out.

ALSO I want to fish the Gandy Bridge. And the Frankland. I want to put a couple of boats at each one and call each other on the phone. I think I have caught and released more tarpon at the gandy over the years then I have the Skyway. Easier to fish, too. Really wonderful.

And that and the frankland is the Tarpon Highway. Tight and on the west side of the bay there, but I have a couple of spots that I would put boats that are verrrrry productive. One of them has a good chance of getting my ass shot for putting another boat on, but screw it. It is a spot in the bay that is unmarked, relatively unknown, and oh-so-very productive. Only two boats can get on it at a time, though.

So list boats and list people. I have to find the girls and the elderly couple that was at the meeting. I am really a retard (sorry, politically correct, but retarded is what I is) and have to go through the original school list.

barrynfla wrote:

Good trip Saturday even though we didn't jump any this trip. Thank you Chris, Caleb and Barry you guys are fun to fish with and real troopers. That rain that Jared ran through blew through the bridge around 5 o'clock. Wouldn't you know it the only real bite we got was during the 10 minute down pour. Of course Caleb out fished everybody on the boat again! Chris you better look out, that boy is going to be wanting to go fishing every waking minute.

Barry, i'm sorry you lost your rig. I heard that sound and then your sigh and knew it wasn't good. I'm glad it was just your pole though and not you.

I will have Dawn and JJ back on the boat this weekend so we could have one or two spots open. Depends on Chris and Caleb are a go again this weekend.

saw more then a few hookups and it seemed to be all on live bait. Our 2 hookups were on live threadfin. Had trouble getting pinfish .

Tim

Just let us know if it works out and we are in again.

Just got home from tarpon fishing with Chef Dave. We left the Ft. Desoto ramp about 3:15 and went to the skyway for bait. Sabikied up some threads and we got more pass crabs than we could use. Then we went out and drifted the Egmont Channel. There must have been 50 boats out there. We saw only two hookups. We used both baits and absolutely nothing doing. Some idiot pulled out of the drift line not far from the stern of Dave's boat and he got caught up in their prop. There went 300 yards of Power Pro!! :angry:

I did enjoy the day but after thinking about it, I reckon I prefer to inshore fish for snook, reds, and trout. Maybe quantity is more important than quality to me. I don't know. I don't keep any fish anyway.

Thanks for all the rod and reel offers but I believe I'll skip the rest of the tarpon outings and go back to spending weekends with my girlfriend. I miss her!! LOL

Thanks,

Barry