St. Petersburg • Clearwater 2009 - (Page 58) Properly hooked bait will increase your odds of success. When I hailed Rick from the dock he came over to pick us up, then backed out into the stream again. Within five minutes and with just one toss of his big net, we had enough live bait for fifty boats. “The tide’s just starting to turn, so we’ll go fish a shallow flat I know about that we can only reach at high water, Rick told us. ” Ten minutes later, I was making my first cast in just two feet of water. Ploop! The cork went under, and I had a fish on. It was a baby sea trout, one of the cutest little fish you’ll ever see. But on my second cast, Big Mama came calling. This was more like it. A few minutes later we had what would have been a keeper trout in the boat. Jane and I were headquartered in the Hilton Clearwater Beach Poling the flats in search of sea trout. Resort. While the room was great and the views across the shimmering white beach spectacular, there were no cooking facilities. Mama went back to be caught another day. In the course of our five-hour charter, Rick put on an impressive demonstration of the range of species available within just a few miles of downtown St. Petersburg. We caught mangrove snapper, Spanish mackerel, even a small cobia (more often found offshore). If snook had been in season, I’m sure we would have caught one or two of those as well. : ON THE WEB LEARN Get inside knowledge about bait & tackle shops, charters for hire and beaches at www.VisitStPeteClearwater.com For the earnest angler, the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area is fishing paradise. Consider that the day after our trip with Rick, we were planning to take one of the many party boats in the area out to the near reefs. Generally a half-day party boat trip is aimed at catching lots of small – and very tasty – reef fish. But as we strolled the Clearwater Marina docks that evening, we came across a sport fisherman called continued on page 60 58 : It’s a l l a b o u t t h e wa te r http://www.VisitStPeteClearwater.com
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