Tonight I fished with some regular clients in the kayaks on Lower Tampa Bay. We launched in the afternoon around 3 and headed out to look for the usual suspects -snook, redfish and trout.
The guys picked up some nice sized trout working the flats on our way out. Eventually we stopped and got out to wade and it wasn’t long before Will got things started with a nice slot red that came home for dinner.
We started wading and throwing walk-the-dog style topwater plugs. We weren’t far from the kayaks when a huge fish blasted my topwater right in front of me. The fish came up and shook its head and I knew right away I had a monster trout on. After fishing Tampa Bay for my entire life, I have caught many, many large trout.. but this fish was the largest I had ever seen on the end of my line. After a couple minute long fight and some very tense moments I had the fish in my hands.. a huge 30″ speckled sea trout and my largest ever – a once in a lifetime fish.
We caught several more nice trout, and it wasn’t long before the guys had a stringer of fish to bring home for dinner. But that would not be the only big fish of the night.
The tide had finished going out and began coming in, just before sunset. I told the guys I expected to get into some snook and it didn’t take long before snook were blasting our topwater plugs. After a couple smaller fish a monster grabbed mine. After a brief fight the fish jumped a threw the hooks. I quickly re-tied and it wasn’t long before I had another hog on. A very respectable 35″ snook.
By then the sun had settled behind the horizon and dark was on us. We paddled in and were off the water by around 9:30.
