March Tampa Bay Fishing

It will be very interesting to see what kind of action we will have this spring. In years past, whenever we’ve had an unseasonably cold winter, the inshore fishing seems to rebound much faster once the water temps warm back up. Since most of our inshore predators haven’t been feeding as heavily because of the cooler water, they will come out ready to eat everything in sight. Some fish will even bite off more than they can chew, as I witnessed one year when I rescued a large Snook which had a full sized Spade Fish stuck in its throat. Bait has been coming out in between the fronts just to tease us a little and then disappearing when the cold air blows through. If we happen to have longer periods between fronts this month, we can expect the sardines to start showing up in their early spring time holes on a regular bases. If you’re unsure of what the bait is doing, it would be wise to pick up some live shrimp which have been very productive this last month for most of our inshore species.

Snook

The long wait is over, Snook season has arrived. If we can get some decent weather to stick around for more than a week, the Snook might be able to start warming up their metabolism enough to feed a little after such a long cold winter. Once we are able to catch bait on a regular bases, the Snook will really start chewing. In the mean time if you’re lucky enough to get your hands on some deans, you may find some pretty pumped up fish ready to devour them.

Most of the fish will be just coming out of their winter haunts so start looking at the mouths of the creeks and canals, then work back further if needed. The fish will be holding up along the deeper edges and should be pretty visible with as clear as the bay has been. Casting plugs this time of year can be very productive for Snook that are coming off such a cold winter. The Zara Spook or Top Dog are a few good choices to tie on for some early spring linesiders.

Trout and Redfish

We have reached the transition point where the specks will start pulling out of the backcountry and making their way back out to the open bay. We should start to see an increase of Trout feeding at the mouths of creeks and out on some of the deeper flats. As the bait starts to show up on the flats the Trout won’t be very far behind. Live Shrimp have been very productive this last month while fishing for Trout back in the creeks. They will how ever, bite on jigs and other artificial baits just the same when you locate a school of hungry fish. The reds have still been schooling up along the outer edge of the upper bay shoreline on the lower tide mornings we’ve been having. This is push pole only fishing since the fish are in such shallow water and are very nervous. We also have been picking up plenty of reds back in the creeks fishing with shrimp and Gulp baits. The reds will also start to move back out to the flats as the weather warms up. They should start showing up around Oyster beds outside of the creeks on higher tides at anytime this month.

Best of the rest

We could have all out fishing madness this month or the cold fronts could keep holding things back. I kind of like the all out madness part myself, but we will just have to wait and see. If things pan out like they should we will see the Spanish Mackerel showing back up this month anywhere from just south of Gandy Bridge all the way to the north part of the bay. Tarpon usually start to show up this month and can be caught around the bridges at night. They will eat just about anything that is presented well enough as they work up and down the shadow line. Just make sure you have the right size tackle when one of those 100 plus pound poons comes swimming by and inhales your bait.