Kids Fish & Fun Tampa Bay

Mondays trip started with NE winds blowing 17 at 5 am which is never a good thing. The Skyway Bridge had big waves making bait gathering tuff so I ran to Ft Desoto fishing pier which offered protection from the wind. One toss of my net gathered enough bait for my 4 hour charter and enough to load up another nearby Captain. Back at O'Neill's Marina I picked up 6 & 8 year old brothers Jet and Jake along with Mom and Dad. These 2 super young boys fished with me last year and are a real blast to have onboard. With the brisk winds I did not want to run across Tampa Bay to my red hot trout spot so we started with plan B. We started on a flat adjacent to the Marina only to find the trout were gone and catfish moved in. The boys quickly caught 5 or 6 catsfish then we moved to Ft Desoto. {%image_id=21796%} Our first stop produced a catfish and lots of Dolphins! Our next stop in another trout hot spot we took a jack a trout and a another cat. As honest as kids are one looked me in the eyes and said this isn't a good spot! Our third stop we quickly nailed 3 trout then just that quick the action stopped. {%image_id=21787%}I decided to change gears and we motored to the ICW and set up along a deep grass flat. The action started with a dogfish then things got better. We got cutoff by several Mackerel, one of the boys got a nice Mack to the boat only to have it cut the line. We managed a few more trout and Ladyfish. Then one of the rods screamed and I was amazed to see Jet in a battle with a Cobia. He got it to the boat quickly then the Cobia went nuts spraying water all over the place.{%image_id=21792%} We ended the day on another grass flat catching Ladyfish, Trout and more Catfish. Overall the day was slower than I would like for young kids. Keeping the rods bent is important for youngsters. Captain Steven Markovich