I hit the water today at 0530 at the Ft. Desoto boat ramp. My targeted species, trout and reds. The flats around the San Christopher Key area only produced a 12" trout that was caught on a DOA glow shrimp using 10lb. Power Pro line. The flats were showing no signs of activity as the sun came up. The out going tide was starting to pick up at this time. I tried the flats along the Sunshine Skyway Miesner bridge span east and west side to no avail either. Not much in the way of bait fish or birds for that matter. The wind had picked up and was blowing about 15knots. So my last stop for the morning was the flats intersecting Bunces Pass and the Skyway Channel. On the NW of Tarpon Key area the wind was blocked by the many mangroves and I came up on a school of reds. A few nice slot size fish could be seen along with a about 30 to 40 smaller reds "shorts" tightly schooled. They were very "spooky" I am sure it was do to all of the boat traffic over the labor day weekend. I spent about an hour trying to get them to chew and used everything in my tackle box, they just would not take. At times like this you feel like getting out the cast net!!!
I finally gave up when the tide quit running and headed back in for the day. I talked to some other anglers back at the boat ramp and they did not have much luck either that morning! Sometimes you have days like this on the water. Glad I at least landed 1 fish and did not have a trip where I did not catch anything. As they say, "The worst day of fishing is better than the best day at the office"!
http://www.fun-florida-getaways.com/fort-desoto-ramp.cfm
http://wikimapia.org/832548/Pinellas-East-West-Channel-ICW
