Tampa Bay Fishing, Anna Maria October Fishing Report

Anna Maria October Fishing Report

The fire is really starting to crackle now. Yes the temperature is still fairly warm but fall is in the air, the humidity has really dropped this past week and the fishing is getting red hot.

Tampa Bay and Sarasota Bay Red fishing is the hot subject of the week. Ok, this is traditionally our best time of the year to fish, but it seems like this fall might be even a little better than usual. As a whole it seems like Red fishing in general is just getting better in our area. I guess it shouldn’t be much of a surprise though because it must be close to 7 or 8 years now that the state has been stocking over a million per year into the bay area, which I believe is starting to pay off in big dividends.

Schools of several hundred Redfish are everywhere, many in places we haven’t seen large numbers in previous years. Not only are my traditional fall spots holding fish but many places I haven’t really spent much time fishing Reds are holding large numbers. This is great; I believe it’s a sign of growing numbers and better fishing in the future.

Many of the Redfish we are catching now are those 30lb plus bulls, but there are plenty of smaller ones to eat around as well. On the best days we are catching as many as 50 a day or as many as you can pull in basically.

Trout fishing is really good now too. There are tons of keepers on the flats in the 17 to 22 inch class, perfect eating size and big enough to get a nice fight too.

Snook fishing is not as good of course, but with the season remaining closed it will bounce back and I have still been catching a few real nice ones while targeting Reds. I have also seen some really nice schools of large Snook hanging around, the spawning size, which is what we need. The good news though is that Red fishing and Trout fishing is better than it has ever been and getting better, maybe the best it has ever been during my 15 years as a fulltime guide.

Near shore there are tons of Mackerel, False Albacore, Sharks and a few Tarpon to catch, mixed in with large bait schools.

Offshore Snapper has been the prime target, further out plenty of nice Grouper. I guess we are going to get out there in the next few days and see if we can boat a monster Goliath Grouper, always fun and exciting for me especially the ones over 400 pounds.

Well that’s my report for this week. Get out there and have some fun fishing, the weather report is great and so is the fishing.

Capt. Matt