On saturday, my father and I went over to Tampa Bay since we heard the mackeral bite was on. With forecasted seas at 2ft offshore and a moderate chop in the bay we were hoping for a good time. So we launched at Oneil's and noticed about 20 boats heading in and we're the only one's going out. Soon enough we found out why. While still North of the skyway, seas picked up from 2ft to 4ft, a little while later we were in 4ft. then 5ft., it got to the point where we were in 6ft seas with waves going over our bow and the boat filling with water. So what do we do but press on. This is where I would like to say that Sea Pro boats are excellent boats and I would recomend it to anybody. Our 23' bay boat is 7yrs old and has been in 10ft seas (I aint exagerating, it was right before a hurricane back in 04') a few miles offshore yet gotten us home safely every time and has never had many problems at all. As soon as we got past the end of the north pier we cut over and headed to the other side of the skyway where it was only 3ft seas. We trolled for a little while with no results and then headed over toward the pilons that protect the center span of the skyway and anchored behind them in shelter. As soon as we started fishing it was game on, within 25 mins. we had our limit of spanish mackeral. Out of the 5 boats in our general vicinity we were the only ones catching fish. I believe that because we tried every bait until we found out that shrimp was what the fish wanted using shrimp and the method of catching them was like grouper fishin. They wouldn't touch anything on top or in middle, only on bottom. Within an hour and a half we had caught over 50 mackeral and the tide had switched causing the bite to turn off. It was a shame that only smaller fish up to 20" were biting. We tried for grouper with only 2 shorts and a grunt. At that point my father wasn't feelin good from a mixture of exhaustion from the previous 24hrs of work and bad seas so we headed in. While we were mack fishin i did put out livebaits for kingfish with no luck and a shark rod, again with no hits. I just can't wait for 2 more weeks when the boat gets to go back down south and tarpon season in SW florida is gonna be on fire.
The sheltered waters of the skyway.
A cooler full of mack's
Me and a few fish
The boat sittin safely back on the trailer
Thats a nice mess of fish trevor i got a boat now. You should come down and fish with me.
Yeah Cody, I'll look at my schedule and see when the next time I can get over there is. If you wanna go down with me to my island house down on palm island let me know, so far it looks like 3 or 4 days every week in may and a couple weekends of june will be spent down there tarpon and shark fishin.
Nice macks,Thanks for the report Trevor.Looks like you made the best of a difficult situation with the seas being so high on the outside you found the right combination on the inside.They say that 5 percent of the fisherman catch 90 percent of the fish and that day you were in the 5 percent.I bet if you got up close to some of those pilons and dropped down a butterflied mack you would of hooked up on a Jewfish.Thanks again for sharing with us.
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midnight if yall want some one with years of experince tarpon and shark fishing in boca pass hit me up wen yall come down this way the tarpon are all ready here aswell as the kings are inside the pass i got all the jigs ready to go hope to see yall 
TEAM Braggin Rights
2014 big shark shootout champ
Will, i tried for a goliath for a little while around where we were but didn't have any luck. Didn't mark any on the bottom machine either. If the seas weren't so bad I would of gone under the baithouses in the skyway piers and dragged a big goliath out... but not worth it in that rough of seas. And James, if I need any help or need another fisherman on the boat I'll give ya a call...
cool and nice fish
TEAM Braggin Rights
2014 big shark shootout champ
Sounds like a plan ill go down there and fish. we need to hit boca grande soon that beach is heating up.
the fish are in boca
TEAM Braggin Rights
2014 big shark shootout champ
they fish have been boca since last week
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