Tampa Bay, Tarpon Springs, Clearwater & St. Petersburg

Smorgasbord - Tarpon Springs/New Port Richey Ron was in town for a surprise visit to see his father on his father's 75th birthday. Ed and Jim, Ron's brother-in-laws were in town for the event as well and they all couldn't resist the temptation of our wonderful fishery. So, they took one day out of their family visit to chase some fish with me today.   On the agenda was to get on some of the redfish that I've been tracking for well over a month now. We had one of those really low winter low tides and again I needed high water to reach these fish. So, I asked if they could hold off on their trip in New Port Richey until around 11:30am and they were game.   After catching some pinfish on the flats I headed to the ramp to go pick up my crew. We then headed out the river and went North to some potholes and oyster bars that had been treating my previous clients so well. Things looked great when we first got there. Mullet everywhere and the tide was ripping in. The only problem though was that the redfish hadn't received the memo that this is where they should be. After poking around for a while looking for them we headed south of the Cotee river to another stretch of shoreline that had been producing. It took a little while to find some fish but and when we did, there weren't many of them. We did however manage 6 or so hookups and landed four or five nice redfish.   By this time the bite has slowed and the tide was now ripping out. We couldn't stay at the redfish spot much longer and I asked Ron if he would rather keep searching for more reds or head for a spot where we had been getting a mixed bag of everything. He said that they would love to just keep a rod bent steadily. So off we went to one of Pasco's prettiest flats on the backside of a barrier island.   On the very first cast at this spot Ron hooked up on a nice trout and from there on out the bite remained pretty consistent. What a mixed bag of fish it was. Trout, ladyfish, spanish mackerel, baby grouper, jacks, and bluefish all came over the side of the boat.   Then the sun started setting and we watched it sink into the Gulf as we headed in. Not the kind of day I was anticipating but it wasn't a bad one. We did get a few reds and much, much, more.