Captain's Report - July/August, 2004

by Capt. Dave Mistretta

Expect wet weather patterns for this entire month. Low pressure systems will be common, throwing a monkey wrenches into many anglers game plans. Strong squall lines will often form in the gulf, pushing their way to land bring heavy rain, high winds and lightning. Safety is the biggest most important issue when traveling offshore, but sometimes these storms are unavoidable. A beautiful day on the water can get pretty ugly in a matter of minutes. Monitoring the vhf radio and networking with other boaters can give you a better grasp of what the unstable weather is doing.

The only consolation of being near one of these storms is an unbelievable bite. Before and after all this activity, the fish seem to go into feeding frenzies. This occurrence is associated with the fluxuating barometer. Red grouper love to explore the bottom when things are untidy at the surface. You can be on a spot with no fish paying any attention to your baits. As soon as cloud cover gets near and winds pick up, everything goes crazy. It doesn't matter how good they are biting, as soon as we see lightning or water spouts, we're out of there.

On the nice days, this month will bring some new additions to the summer bite. Cobia will start to show up on many of the offshore structures. They will not be small either. Many of these fish are mature females holding roe. Bring heavy tackle for these bruisers. At least 60 pound line is needed. I can remember many Augusts in the past, producing cobia over the fifty pound mark. Our biggest during this heated month was an eighty eight pounder, back in 1990. She was taken off the Indian shores artificial reef, ten miles due west of Indian Rocks beach. We had hooked three other large fish, but got destroyed by their brute strength and wit. Big cobias know exactly where to take the lines down into structure. They can break sixty pound fishing line as if it were thread.

This reef is unique; since it has four large barges sank within a mile off each other. Other concrete pillars and fish attracters are scattered throughout the mile stretch, but the barges are where you'll find the cobias. All the action in 1990 took place at the barge located at the middle of the reef. We used to call it the cable barge, because there were piles of steel cables, coiled up in mass, on the deck of the sunken barge. The elevated structure made this particular wreck much better than the other three. Now time has deteriated the cables leveling out the action to all the barges equally. There are other wrecks that work well too. The Betty Rose, Veterans reef, St. Pete reef and Rube Allen are all good cobia attracters.

Some kingfish will also be available around the wrecks in eighty plus feet of water. August draws some huge kings to our area. They also are large females and are quite eager to grab a baited hook. If a wreck is holding juvenile cigar minnows and Spanish sardines (which is common this month), chances are a big king is lurking nearby. It's not the small baitfish the kings want, but large blue runners. The food chain is working best in this scenario. Small baitfish will school around structure, eating tiny shrimp, crabs and whatever they can find. Blue runners follow the bait schools, attacking periodically. On the outskirts, you'll find the a few huge kings waiting for an opportunity to ravage a blue runner. Rest assured, some big bull sharks will be watching the kings. The numbers of kings are nowhere near what the spring and fall brings, but some beautiful fish can be taken. We have already have landed a forty and two fish in the thirties near these bait stacks.

The red grouper fishing should be as strong as last month, with numerous depths producing nice fish. Once you have reached the seventy foot mark, start looking for shows of fish. Keepers can be taken from this depth, but you'll have to pick thru the shorts. As you travel deeper, eighty to ninety feet, there will be less undersized fish and the size of the keepers will be larger. The fish will be on the move, so fish the roll offs from sand to hard bottom aggressively. We give each spot about ten minutes, then drag anchor a hundred yards either way on the same roll off. Flat lines are a must during these anchoring sessions. We hooked a small sailfish a couple of days ago while grouper digging in eighty feet of water. We also caught a legal red grouper on the same type flat line. The tide was running slow allowing the free-lined bait to swim down towards the groupers feeding zone of about twenty feet off the bottom . Cigar minnows are easily assessable with a gold hook rig during these grouper sessions.

Captain's Report - July/August, 2004

by Capt. Dave Mistretta

Past Captain's Reports