# Upper Tampa Bay Trout Fishing Old School Style 1/31/10



## SnookMook

Well yesterday Ron Smith (Wrangler) and I headed out for a little fishing in upper Tampa Bay. It was a pretty solid early morning low tide and the weather was less than perfect. We had pretty strong winds coming out of the north and it was much colder than we thought it would be. However, we were not to be deterred. 

The plan was to do a little speckled trout fishing first at a few spots, and little more trout fishing while trolling a channel toward an oyster bar spot which we then planned to fish for redfish and sheepshead.

The first few spots produced a good number of trout. These were all caught by Wrangler on MirrOlure 52M sinkers while casting. 










I tried throwing a variety of D.O.A. and Gulp baits on Mission Fishin’ jig heads. I got a few bumps, but no takers. 

I then switched to the MirrOlures, but the bite seemed to shut down.

Then it was off to the oyster bar hole which Wrangler and I have fished successfully a number of times before. 

Wrangler of course hooked up on a nice trout as we trolled into that spot. This is a technique he has been using for nearly 40 years, he said. 



















At the oyster bar spot we were using live and frozen shrimp. I caught a few small sheepshead, not any keepers. We both caught a number of pinfish, and Ron caught a just under slot redfish. 

That was about it that spot. This was very disappointing as this spot in the past has produced many keeper redfish and sheepshead. 

We then proceeded to slow troll the channel on the way out. This turned out to be the ticket. On the first troll Wranger hooked up on our biggest trout of the day which went 18-19 inches. 










We trolled back through, but the trout didn’t seem to want to hit a bait heading in that direction. We made another troll in the north direction and bam, we had another hook up. Wrangler said he had seen this many times before. Some days on a certain tide the trout are facing one way and they only want a bait headed in one direction. Today they wanted a bait heading north which was against the slow incoming tide. Go figure. 

We proceeded to make many more trolls and I started to get the hang of this technique of counting down with the 52M and mastering the short twitch to flash the bait. 



















Before we knew it we were getting double hookups and we had a good number of fish to the boat. Most were caught trolling, but we caught, I should say Wrangler caught, a good number casting as well.










Wrangler put on a trout fishing clinic and I believe he caught 26 trout to my six. I did spend a good deal of time learning his technique and also taking underwater photos of some of the trout boatside. So I may have had a better number if I didn’t take the time to share some awesome photos with you all. 

Enjoy.


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## CrappieKid

nice nice nice.thanks 4 the pics.....:fishing:


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## ledweightII

Ive got the exact same lures, glad to see they work! I just dont do artificial yet...but im looking to start and get away from live bait for awhile. glad to see somebody having success in all the cold were having in s.c. and georgia.


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## SnookMook

It's been pretty damn cold down here in Florida too. Worst winter I think I've ever seen since I moved down from Jersey in 1973. 

When you can't find the sheepies in Florida you know it's cold. I was really surprised the trout were hitting that good, but they were deep and the lures had to be moved slooooowwwwwwww!


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## drumchaser

Nice, looks fun. Thanks.


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## Fishman

LOL i was doing a serch on specs last night and found this same article on a Google link. Nice report. Yea I have some of those same lures also and still learng how to use the 52M.


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## SnookMook

Fishman--Thanks, I'm curious though, when you found it on Google was that link back to my site at the newspaper or to one of the forums?


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## Fishman

It must have been a link back because I was Googleing somthing to do with spotted sea trout when I found the article. Ill look in my files and see if I can find the article and link.

Just found the link

http://forshorefishing.blogs.theled...ay-trout-fishing-old-school-style/?pa=1&tc=pg


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