The weather is absolutely gorgeous this time of the year on Anna Maria Island, highs in the low 80s and always some sort of breeze. Not only is the weather nice but the island is quite, not alot of traffic or tourism. In my opinion it is one of the perfect months to visit our little slice of paradise, especially if you are a fisherman.
As the seasons change and the temperatures start to drop the fishing just gets better and better. There is just so much life throughout Tampa and Sarasota Bay this time of the year. Inshore we are catching an abundant amount of Snook and Redfish around the shallow Mangroves and grass flats. Around the bay reefs, wrecks and rockpiles we are catching Spanish Mackerel, Jack Crevelle, and starting to see some Sheephead starting to ove in.
We have been spending most of our time in the Gulf of Mexico on the nearshore reefs of Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key. Again the cooler water temperatures are bring all sorts of life very close to land. It’s definitely my favorite time of the year as there is just some many different species to target. A variety of Palagic fish migrating through such as King Mackerel, Cobia, Bonita, and Barracuda are moving through our region. A variety of sharks are also following these fish around and make for a heck of a day when we can get one on the hook!
This week Hogfish are on the hit list. These very unique looking fish are a blast to catch. They can be finicky and tough to hook, but when you do they put up one heck of a fight! Conditions are perfect for the hogfish right now and we are having some really fantastic trips catching multiple of them at once, which does not usually happen every day. The best part is these fish are some of the best table fare that we can catch in our area, they are a mild white flaky fish and taste like butter.
Our best success with the hogs is usually finding limestone ledges in 40-60ft of water. These ledges usually only have about 12-24 inches of relief from the bottom and can be very tricky to detect, our 2018 Tcraft 24 is decked out with a Simrad 9 inch Sonar machine and help make this process a little easier. These ledges are also home to a variety of other fish as well. Gag and Red Grouper, Mangrove Snapper, Key West Grunts and blue line Porgy just to name a few.
The current and depth will dictate how much weight to use, typically between 1 and 3 ounces of weight will be needed. Our favorite rig is a 2 ounce egg weight with a 2/0 owner circle hook, we set it up as a knocker rig. About 6 ft 20 lb fluorocarbon leader with the egg weight resting on the eye of the hook, we like to use a small bead in-between the hook and weight to protect the knot from the weight rubbing it. We like to use a handpicked live shrimp on our knocker rig, and we want the shrimp to be settled on the bottom for best results.
These fish feed off of the bottom, if you can picture a pig eating in the wild rooting around in the dirt and mud then you can understand how these fish eat, it is almost exactly the same.
If you are looking to put some meat in the freezer, then this is the time of year to go bottom fishing out of Anna Maria Island with a variety of fish to bring home. Thanksgiving is coming up, let’s switch it up and catch some fish for a Fish Fry!
Tight lines, Capt. Wes Wildman
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