By Capt. Will Hubbard
In the last week of January I had clients who had been scheduled for 2 months flying in from Pittsburgh for a big corporate fishing trip. With that said, the pressure was on to put them on some really good fish. The week leading up to the charter my son and I went pre-fishing every spare second we had. The weather was a perfect low 70’s and the fish were biting like crazy. The day before they arrived mother nature decided she was going to be a heffer and sent South Florida’s 2 Day Winter. I was determined not to let that affect my clients’ trip.
The morning of the trip we headed out and the conditions could not have been worse. It was cold and the wind was blowing in from the north at 20 mph pushing the water out of the bay on an outgoing tide and keeping the water from coming in on an incoming tide. This caused extremely low tides. We had set out at daylight to search for bait 2 hours before we picked up our clients. As you may know, the cold and low tides causes the bait fish to go to deep waters making it nearly impossible to find them. As you can imagine, there was no bait to be found anywhere. Bound and determined for our clients to have a great day fishing we decided to stick to the basics and what we know works in the cold low-tide conditions. With the bait fish hiding in deeper waters we decided to go to the oyster bars with our tough gloves and boots, and hand rake to dig up some good ol’ mud crabs. We were happy when we were able to get 4 dozen mud crabs from the oyster bar. Wanting a variety of bait, we also went to Gasparilla Marina and bought 8 dozen for shrimp for the day. With bait in hand it was time to pick up our clients from their rental on Little Gasparilla Island, so we discussed our best options for the day to make sure our clients catch fish. Our conclusion once again was to stick to the basics and take them dock fishing. With the cold temperatures we couldn’t just pick any old dock. We had to make sure the docks we went to were deep water docks. When we arrived to pick up our clients something happened that had never happened before. The clients handed us a $300 tip before they ever even set foot on the boat. I looked at my client in shock and said, “are you sure you want to tip before you catch any fish?” Then the client proceeded to say that he tips on the front end because T.I.P.S stands for, “To Insure Perfect Service”…..and the pressure was on!
One thing we were excited about was using some new jigs we had bought. These awesome jigs are made here locally in Tampa by Tampa Bay Fishing Channel. We were excited to give them a try dock fishing for sheepshead. As we arrived at our first deep water dock we baited the new jigs with a mud crab. Low and behold on our first cast under the dock – BAM, fish on! We stayed on that dock for 20 minutes and caught 5 nice sheepshead. One of the great things about the jigs is that they have a circle hook on them so the client does not have to set the hook as soon as they feel the first bite. (This specific jig makes reeling in a fish for an amateur client more successful.)
As the tide came in a little and the day warmed, we were able to catch some white bait and successfully continued to fish the deep water docks. We took a lunch break and headed back out to some more deep water docks. We used the Tampa Bay Fishing Channel jigs with some white bait and ended up catching an inshore slam (redfish, snook, and trout). Not bad for our 2-day winter in Florida. We finished the trip by cleaning the sheepshead and making sure our clients had delicious dinner!
If you are interested in experiencing fishing with us in Gasparilla Sound, give me a call
or text 678-630-1536…..(we might even throw in a bonus mud crabbing hunt. ;)
Family Traditions Charter Co-
familytraditionscharterco@gmail.com
Find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FamilyTraditionsCharterCo
