Getting Ready
It's about time for the water to warm. The gulf should be closer to 70 degrees instead of 65 degrees. The whitebait come and go at 72 as do many other fish. The mud minnows stick around and will wait out the cold buried in the mud.
Unfortunately the snook take a major hit due to the very cold winter... So much for global warming... So this year snook are off the menu. That's too bad since they seemed to have made a good come back from the last very cold winter in the 90's. Due to the colder Hernando county winter temperatures, snook will usually stay south of Hudson.
Redfish however can tolerate much colder water and the only upside to the massive snook die off is there will be less food competition for the redfish and mangrove snappers. So in theory this should be another great year for the redfish.
The reels are greased and the boat is almost ready to go. I am looking forward to going out this week. The tides look like I will head to Centipede Bay and if time permits I'll look for whitebait. The whitebait come and go at 72 degrees. Last year this time there where a few reports of whitebait at Bayport.
Good Luck and I am looking forward to our first redfish dinner...
Zippyjr