By: Capt. Mike Ikemeier
Going into October the redfish bite is going to be great. In Tampa Bay, October is known as “red October” for a reason and fishing in the Bay has been crazy lately! The snook and redfish bite has been great also the grouper are starting to show up thick! These past few weeks we have been fishing the flats early for snook and redfish. We fish for these fish early because of the extreme temperatures here in Tampa Bay. In the afternoons, the water can get as hot as 91 degrees, so we have to hit it before the fish move into deeper water. The very unique part of this is after we target redfish and snook we go out to deeper water for the grouper and snapper fishing. There are not many places where you can catch snook and redfish and go less than a mile away and be ripping grouper off the bottom! It’s an amazing experience to be able to chase snook and redfish shallow and feel the power of grouper in the same day. Also, another unique and very fun experience is dock light fishing at night. When dock light fishing, you can see the fish in the light and watch them eat your bait. It’s basically like shooting fish in a barrel. The dock lights can hold snook, redfish, snapper, and sometimes even tarpon. Recently on the dock lights the tarpon have been very thick. Also, another very cool experience is fishing docks for grouper. Just like bass fishing we flip under docks with big live baits. Usually, we use pinfish or big pilchards and there’s nothing like trying to pull a grouper out of a dock. You have to have patients or else you will break the line. It is an amazing experience to be able to catch a 24+ inch grouper out from under a dock in 5 feet of water. You can also get them around the Skyway Bridge. Fishing around the Skyway you don’t just catch grouper, but you can catch a wide variety of fish that are delicious table fare. For example, one of my favorite fish to pull out of the Bay is mangrove snapper, and on the Skyway mangrove snapper are plentiful and can get pretty big. Overall fishing in the Bay has been excellent and if you would like to see how we do it, drop us a line or email as we would love to take you on the adventure of a lifetime!
