Weather and water clarity have improved, but local inshore fishing has been slow. I got out Monday morning with my fishing buddy Keli Emery. The winds were light and the tide was slack so we decided to try some deep-water spots around the channel for grouper and snapper.

Netting bait was pretty easy by November standards. We found plenty of pinfish off the Cockroach Bay entrance channel, then Keli threw the net on a school of good-sized sardines. Sadly, that was the end of our catching. We tried bottom fishing for grouper for a couple of hours with only one hook-up, and that fish broke off. Then we headed into Simmons Park to look for snook or redfish. We didn’t find either. It was a bright, sunny day with a slight breeze — a great day to fish, but the catching wasn’t so hot.

Later that afternoon I went upriver with some of the leftover bait. I hooked a snook at the railroad trestle on the Little Manatee River, but it jumped off after a series of leaps. I tossed a few baits out as chum, and I finally saw a good fish pop one of the baits 20 yards from the boat. I cast a big white bait where I saw the boil and it disappeared a few seconds later. A few minutes later I landed a keeper snook, right at 28 inches with the tail pinched.

Captain Rick Bollinger had better luck trolling the shipping channel. He caught grouper, big Spanish mackerel and a kingfish.

I got out for a couple of hours Tuesday afternoon looking for redfish with some cut bait, but I never had the first hit. Redfish have done the disappearing act on this side of the bay for the entire month.

I’ve been skipping a few pompano off Mangrove Point, just north of the mouth of the Little Manatee River, but have yet to hook up. Every time I’ve stopped and made a few casts, I’ve hooked some big ladyfish, but no pompano.