Captain Rick Gross-Fishing Report-04-01-2013
Fishy Business Fishing Charters

Island Discount Tackle Charter Desk: (941) 779-2838
www.KeyesMarina.com

—–Fishing out of Island Discount Tackle and Anna Maria Island this week, the weather felt more like winter than spring. The wind again was a problem to deal with. I had to shuffle some trips around until later in the week because the wind and cold were just too bad to fish.
—–On Wednesday, Jeff Schumacher and his two sons fished with me on a four hour morning trip. We caught sheepshead in the one to four pound range under one dock for two hours then went to another deep hole to fish for silver trout. We caught the sheepshead on knocker rigs and shrimp. We caught the silvers on Berkley gulp shrimp on quarter oz. jigs. Although none of the fish where very big the kids had a great time catching them on a cold windy day.
—–Thursday I had a full day with David Newlin and party. We started out by fishing some deeper grass flats in Sarasota bay with free-lined shiners. We caught nice trout up to eighteen inches, spanish mackerel to twenty and a few flounder to fourteen inches. After the tide came in enough to get up next to the mangroves, we fished for reds and landed fish up to twenty two inches.
—–On Friday I fished with Richard Henry and friends for a four hour morning trip. We again fished Sarasota bay flats and caught trout, bluefish and mackerel. All were taken while fishing free-lined shiners on aberdeen gold hooks and twenty pound fluorocarbon leader.
—–Friday afternoon I fished with Jim Keller and his wife. We had a good, strong  afternoon outgoing tide so I headed for Terra Ceia Bay. There we found redfish up to twenty two inches and speckled trout to twenty five inches.
—–Saturday I had a full day trip with Jon Stuver and Tom Haley. We started out in the gulf looking for some spanish mackerel action. We caught only a few and it got a little rough so we headed back to the flats of Sarasota bay. This proved to be a very good decision. We had only been anchored for about ten minutes when things started to heat up. I started to chum with handfuls of shiners and within minutes a big school of redfish moved in. We never moved the rest of the day and had twelve triple hook-ups with redfish from twenty three inches to the best fish of thirty three inches. While fishing for the reds we also caught trout to twenty six inches and some snook up to thirty inches.
Thank You & Good Fishing!