The bait is abundant on the shallow grass flats throughout Tampa bay, off the beaches, and around the larger bridges in the bay like the iconic Sunshine Skyway. The bait schools are pushed to the surface by hungry Spanish mackerel, jack crevelle, and ladyfish which are also schooling and goring themselves on these baitfish in preparation for their migration up the rivers to prepare to make their homes for winter. This has been helping to add great action on our half day fishing charters. Once we locate a school of actively feeding fish we have pretty constant action which is great for kids.

The mangrove snapper bite has continued to be great, but as we get more into fall and the spawn ends they will not be as plentiful and will become less of a target on our fishing charters, so get them while you still can! As we transition into fall we will target the tasty gag groupers more often. We use live baits and troll for these tasty fish. They can be tricky to catch once hooked because of the shallow rocky areas that we fish. This gives them more opportunity to break our leaders in a matter of seconds. Trolling for them gives us a better chance at landing the fish but the conditions have to be right to fish for them effectively using this technique. Tampa bay holds plenty of gag groupers year round but in the fall is when we tend to see our largest fish.

The redfish fishing is as good as it gets right now. There are plenty of schools of fish around on the shallow grass flats. Most of the fish are ranging from 20-35 inches making for a great arm workout. On a few of our fishing charters lately we have been able to locate a school of hungry fish and chum them with live baits making for nonstop action for an hour or two. There has been plenty of snook around as well and jack crevelle mixed in with the redfish. We are starting to see more large snook around as they make their way back to the rivers as well to spend winter.

This is one of the best times of the year to fish in Tampa Bay. There are so many options to chose from and there is very little boat traffic. There is also very little tourist traffic on Anna Maria Island making for a great time to visit the great restaurants. If you are looking for a family friendly fishing charter in Bradenton & Anna Maria Island area give me a call or text 813-220-8725.