Saturday, December 12, 2009

Lake Tarpon Report 12/10/09

Due to the inclement weather, fellow North Tampa Bass Club member Greg Eagle and I decided to nix our planned trip to Stick Marsh/Farm 13 and spend the day on the much closer Lake Tarpon. We picked up some farm raised shiners at Fox's Corner just to make sure we had our bases covered and headed out to the lake about 9:00am. The wind was howling pretty good from the NE so we headed to the East side of the lake (more specifically the Hunt's canal area) and got started. We worked the mouth area of Hunt's with no action tossing worms and shiners. I was able to get one strike on a Bitters Sling inside the canal but I couldn't boat what felt like a small keeper. We moved south down the shoreline over the "roller coaster" where Greg's shiner got slammed but spit out just as quick. After little action there, I decided to head to the canals in Little Dolly Bay to see if we could pick off some small ones running crank baits down the middle of the canals. I was able to boat 3 on consecutive casts but that was it for the Shad Rap. We still couldn't drum up a fish on shiners as Greg trolled one behind the boat up and down the canals. Still working the canals, I was able to pick up 3 more shorts on a junebug Bitters Sling before Greg finally got one on a shiner pitching up on the edge of a dock. It would weigh-in close to 2-lbs and be the biggest fish we would lay eyes on all day! After fishing the canals, we headed south down the shoreline past "the wall" where Greg picked up a couple keeper size on Texas rigged trick worms in junebug worked on the edge of docks. From there, we headed to John Chesnut Ramp area where I caught 3 more small ones on a Texas rigged trick worm and missed a strike on a shiner and Greg got one more 2-lber on a Texas rigged trick worm. We finished up at Brooker Creek with no strikes as there seemed to be no water flowing out even after the recent rains. The total tally would be 13 fish for the day with Greg's 4 fish all measuring between 1.5 to 2-lbs and all bigger than anything I could catch on the day. The shiner bite was non-existent, at least on farm raised shiners but the hits on artificial were aggressive. The water temps were between 61 and 64 and the air temps were probably close to the same. Unfortunately we didnt get to fish Stick Marsh but we had fun and made the most out of cold nasty day!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

New Florida Fishing Blog

Check out Dunedin fishing guru Kevin McCarthy's new blog here.

"This site is being created to offer fisher people of all levels exciting and knowledgeable fishing reports, product info,weather/tide reports,fishing regulations,photos/fishing stories and recipes providing every person with the opportunity to have a great day the next time you are on the water."