Wintertime Fishing off the Flats – Fishing Guide Ruskin

As water temps drop, moving off the flats may be all you need to do to keep your rods bent all day.It’s no secret that the fish that roam Tampa Bay’s flats don’t like cold water.   Lower water temps mean fish are more lethargic, eat less, and move less.  Water temperatures on the clean shallow flats of Tampa Bay fluctuate a lot throughout the day.  As the sun sets water temps in shallow water can drop drastically and take several hours of sunlight to start warming back up.   Conversely, water temperatures in deeper water stay much more constant.  Read More

Flounder Fishing Charter Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay’s flounder fishery has been dramatically improving over the past few years. Fortunately for those of us that like to catch and eat these tasty flat fish, flounder populations are strong enough to exclusively target them during the cooler months of the year.

Two species of flounder call Tampa Bay home. The Gulf flounder is the most common and can be identified by three distinct dark spots on its back. The southern flounder is less common and usually covered in spots. Read More

Hot Summertime Action – Tampa Fishing Charters with Captain Matt Santiago

The weather is not the only thing that is hot right now.  The summer heat is here but with it comes some of the best fishing action of the year.  Fishing the flats and mangrove shorelines for snook, redfish, and trout is still consistent, but the best action has been for tarpon, cobia, sharks, snapper, and grouper.

Fishing for big snook has been really good, especially early in the mornings before the sun starts to heat things up too much.   Read More

Tarpon Season 2014 is upon us!

TARPON SEASON IS HERE!!!Tarpon fishing in Tampa Bay is perhaps the most exciting light tackle fishing the world has to offer in one of the worlds most productive tarpon fisheries.  This season is sure to be a great one and I still have a few good tarpon days available for May and June.

Ever since I was very young and caught my first tarpon I have been addicted to chasing and catching these amazing fish.  Read More

Spring is in the air!

Our recent fishing charters on Tampa Bay have been fair to excellent over the last month and things are really about to heat up.  We have been fishing from the Skyway Bridge and Fort DeSoto all the way up in the bay to the Gandy Bridge. The redfish and trout fishing have been good, but it’s the snook action that has really stolen the stage lately. We have caught many snook over 30 inches lately, and lost some even bigger ones to the bushes and docks.

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Fabulous Fall Fishing!

The Fall weather is here and with it brings some of the best fishing of the year.  Almost every part of the bay is holding good numbers of gamefish and the near shore and offshore fishing is red hot as well.  Inshore fishing for Snook, Redfish, and Trout has been excellent and a Florida Inshore Grand Slam which consists of one of each of the above mentioned species is almost a guarantee, even on a half day of fishing.

The Snook have started to move into the rivers, estuaries, and small bays, and are feeding almost 24/7 to fatten up for Winter. Read More

Everything Is On Fire!!!

It’s one of my favorite times of the year again and the fishing gods must be in a good mood because they sent us some great fishing targets ahead of schedule.   Tarpon, Kingfish, and Cobia are three of my favorite fish to catch and all three have already started to show up much earlier than expected.  Thanks to the warm weather and influx of bait, these three pelagics are definitely moving in to our area’s beaches and bays. Read More

Cold Front Fishing!

Fishing around the cold fronts is the key to making a great day!  The fishing out of the Gandy area has been on fire!  Trout in the 17-24 inch class  and multiple slot redfish being released as well as those over 27 inches.  The smaller redfish are also easy pickings with a 1/8th oz jig and a piece of shrimp slowly moved along the channel edges and drop offs!

The Snook bite has been on fire with whitebait readily available to the hard working individual! Read More

Life for the Land Locked Angler

Shallow water redfish might be my passion, but largemouth bass fishing during the spawn and pre-spawn months has been a tradition for me since i was a kid. I loaded up the Hewes Redfisher with a different type of tackle this day. Topwater frogs, weedless worms, and texas rigs filled the tackle storage and off to a local lake we went.

Today we were focusing on bass starting to stage up in their pre-spawn homes. Read More

Lots of Fish

The fish are biting and the weather is nice, everyone should be trying to get out to do a little fishing. I have been fishing Tampa Bay with some great success. Every year the Redfish in Tampa Bay go back to their wintertime spots and I am not talking about the little 8 to 12 inchers that go to the rivers every year.  The fish that I am talking about are the big ones. The Redfish are on the flats and some days they are up close to the shore, and some days they are over 500 yards from the shore. Read More