A few days either side of the full moon can be a great time to fish on the low tides, but navigation can be tough and even hazardous at times unless you know the waters well. This past weekend’s full moon along with some winds from the northeast blew Tampa Bay waters out to negative lows greater than the predicted levels, forcing fish into potholes and into channel edges.

Water temperatures dropped into the low-to mid-60s over the weekend, with morning temps at 64 and afternoon hitting 68 degrees in some areas. I had been hearing from a few anglers about a good top water bite, and decided to throw some lures to see if I could get something going. With the low temperatures I didn’t expect much action in the morning, and figured the afternoon bite would be the time for some action. Fish were lethargic, and wouldn’t chase many lures on top. I normally wouldn’t throw top waters with water temps this low, but it was worth a try.

When waters are cool and clear, I scale down the size of lures I tie on and lighten and lengthen my leaders. I worked the MirrOmullet XL and MirrOlure She Pup, both small walking baits that imitate a baitfish like a mullet. The results were about what we expected. Slow action but steady, that produced small Trout and Redfish. The more aggressive fish were near the bottom, and that was evident when we tied on CAL Jigs with Shad tails that produced some nice Trout, Flounder, and Ladyfish.

Over the week’s fishing, smaller reds moved into the lower Tampa Bay area, and it seems like most Flounder we were catching were smaller as well. Pre-full moon Flounder were much larger and contained roe. No females with roe were caught on Sunday, on the post-full moon bite, making me think that those ready to spawn, did it over the weekend during the full moon.

We will have some excellent tide periods throughout this week, that should produce some exciting feeding periods. I have a few open days before the New Year, for those looking to get out and wet a line.

Capt. Ray Markham runs the Flat Back II out of Terra Ceia specializing in fishing with artificial lures using light tackle. He can be reached for charter via email at Ray.Markham@gmail.com or on his cell at (941) 228-3474.