I go down to the Keys everyear, I like the fishing there much better of
course but one time we cruised up to Dunedin, Tampa bay, we fished pretty
hard and caught a bunch of those sea trouts. What we had fun doing in that
area of the Gulf was to catch some of those smaller grunts or snappers and
hook them in the tail with a larger rig then let them swim out for a while
and BAM,,, a shark or stingray or big grouper. I don't know what the laws
are there about using this type of bait, hopefully someone will add that but
we spent the better part of a day doing that one time, caught about 6 or 8
really big sharks and a few that just wouldn't come near the boat, didn't
know what those were. A few peeled our reels right off and left us there
laughing but wonder what those were. Of course we only had 20 and 30 and 50
lbs line, and not real big tackle.
Good luck, don't forget the fishing licenses.






"erich" wrote in message
om...
We'll be spending all of January on the west coast of Florida near New
Port Richey. We will be on a canal about a half-mile from the Gulf.
The house we are renting comes w/ a "flats boat" and 25hp outboard.
I've never fished in an area like this (home is central IL where I try
to catch LM bass from my 18' Nitro).

From the maps I've seen, the depth in the immediate vicinity appears
to be no more than 20 feet. I'd greatly appreciate any advice on
fishing in this area. What's the major game fish? How do you catch
'em? Any books, web-sites, etc., I should review.

I'm basically catch and release but not adverse cleaning and cooking
if the catch is right.
Thanks.