By Dave Zalewski, Times Correspondent
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
What's hot: Spanish mackerel have arrived in force. And their larger cousins, king mackerel, will not be far behind. The key to catching both is bait — not necessarily catching bait, but using it to locate fish.
Adventure 1: Sunday, scattered schools of small baitfish were seen on the fish finder between John's Pass and Pass-a-Grille on and under the surface. Because it is early in the season and historically the baitfish are small, we trolled Nos. 00 and 0 gold and silver spoons behind No. 1 planers. Hitting the MOB button on the GPS when a strike occurred and using the highway mode allowed us to return to where the fish were concentrated. Venturing offshore to Markers 9 and 10 in the shipping channel produced slightly larger mackerel and some bluefish.
Adventure 2: Tuesday, we left the dock with expectations of repeating Sunday's trip. But the same areas produced few fish. Noticeable was the lack of baitfish. This caused us to break out the bottom-fishing tackle and anchor on limestone outcroppings south of the shipping channel. Our group experienced nonstop light tackle action for several hours from porgies, white grunts, and catch-and-release red and gag grouper. The highlight was catching a 27-inch gag on light grunt tackle. We returned to the dock with plenty of fish and knowledge of spots to return to later.
Dave Zalewski charters the Lucky Too out of Madeira Beach. Call (727) 397-8815.