Tampa Bay Charter Fishing

I just had the good fortune to spend three days on the water with two very good friends, Garvey Hayes and Bob Farthing.  Garvey and I have been friends since we were elementry school classmates at Millers Creek, NC.  I met Bob through Garvey when I was a student at Appalachian State University at Boone NC.  Garvey comes down to Florida each winter for a few weeks to escape the cold mountain weather and we always find a way to put together a few days of fishing.  During his visit this year March roared in like the proverbial lion with three days of 20 knot east wind.  Fortunately east winds on lower Tampa Bay are quite fishable.  We spent our time in the shelter of islands, causeways and condominiums.  Our primary technique was to drift the flats and cast rubber tail jigs.  We also used the old standby of live shrimp suspended under floats.  These methods provided a good number of trout and Spanish mackerel and a couple of flounder for the guys to take back home.  We also used fresh cut shrimp pieces to entice some crafty sheepshead into the boat.  Pieces of shrimp were in order because the sheepshead are way too good at stealing whole shrimp from the hook.  We also caught other entertaining species that were not destined to the fillet table such as ladyfish and bonnethead sharks.  All in all we had a great time even if the elements were not in our favor.

Fishing in windy conditions can be very frustrating if you don’t do a little preparation first.  One of the most obvious things you should do is become familiar with the area in which you fish so you can determine which places are fishable under various conditions.  For example a bar that runs east and west will be difficult to fish on a north or south wind.  Another thing you can do is go out in a windy but relatively safe day and determine how your boat reacts to the conditions.  I run a 24 foot center console outboard bay boat.  My boat drifts side ways to the wind which works out really well for drifting the flats and casting lures down wind.  I can further control the drift by turning the helm all the way to the port or starboard which will result in the boat moving slightly forward or backward as well as side ways.  That is a lot of verbiage just to say – figure out what you can do to affect your boats drift and then use it to your advantage.