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Kingfish
Posts: 1201
 
Location: Tampa Bay | Wading a good way to pass day
By FRED EVERSON
Posted December 09, 2009 by The Tampa Tribune
Fishing behind cold fronts is seldom very productive, but it still beats working. On a calm, overcast day with light rain and an extreme low tide, I decided to do some wading. The midday low had the sand bars out of the water just south of Sand Key and the Little Manatee River. I like to idle in until the skiff goes aground, then throw the anchor out, put the waders on and get out and walk.
The nice thing about wading on South Shore Tampa Bay is that the bottom is mostly hard sand and all but the deepest holes and cuts are no more than waist deep. With the water temperature in the mid 60s waders are required. I prefer to look for redfish on the shallow edges of the holes, where you can see their tails sticking up out of the water as they root around on the bottom for crabs and shrimp. On this day I carried a spare rod in my wade belt rigged with a gold-colored jig while I fished with a weedless jerkbait on a weighted worm hook. The first hit came from a little flounder that stubbornly held on to the bait until I grabbed the leader, then it let go.
I saw quite a few tails when the tide started coming in, but I believe most of them were sheepshead. I finally put a good cast on a tail I could positively identify as a redfish, and it turned out to be a prime 25-inch slot fish.
The next day I went back to the same flat free-lining live shrimp. The tide didn’t go quite low enough, however, and I only saw a couple of tails. There were some big trout there, I caught and released five very nice ones. All were between 17 and 19 inches. Trout season remains closed through December but reopens Jan. 1.
Visit captain Fred Everson’s Web site at tampabayfishingguide.com for charter info or call (813) 830-8890.
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Good Wading - Fred Everson | TBO
