The Tampa Bay Times
Recently, mangrove snappers and sheepshead seem to be the most popular fish targeted by offshore spearfishermen. Offshore waters out to about 30’ and all the way back into the canals, bridges and deeper of Tampa Bay are loaded with sheepshead. The larger ones are offshore and some fat sheepshead over six pounds have been speared when this busy winter weather calmed and laid down it’s rough seas. Areas inside the bay are very good sheepshead areas when the weather is bad offshore. The visibility had been good in Tampa Bay and after a couple of warm days the water can warm up in the shallow bay dive sites. Red grouper season is back open but it’s hard to find keeper size grouper in water shallower than 80’ deep. The windy weather patterns have kept most divers close to the coast so our divers haven’t speared many legal size red groupers. Mangrove snapper are almost all bottom structure and fishermen and divers have all but much of their attention on these snappers. The divers who don’t want to dive in the 60 degree Gulf of Mexico water, moved back to their fishing gear rather than using their diving gear. The last full moon phase was hot for fishing mangrove snappers. The only hard part of these fishing trips has been getting the baits past the large schools of red snappers and gag groupers to reach the mangrove snapper on the bottom.
- Jay Mastry - March 26, 2024
- Captains Corner, Gorta - March 23, 2024
- Dave Zalewski - March 12, 2024
