Old Tampa Bay Fishing Reports (December 2025)

George Hastick
St. Petersburg, Florida
Reported: 10 months ago

Trout and redfish have been on fire fishing the docks and the backwaters with some snook mixed in. Shrimp, artificials and scaled sardines have all been working. Fiddler crabs and shrimp have been catching sheepshead.

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George Hastick St. Petersburg, Florida Reported: 10 months ago

Trout and redfish have been on fire fishing the docks and the backwaters with some snook mixed in. Shrimp, artificials and scaled sardines have all been working. Fiddler crabs and shrimp have been catching sheepshead.

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Christian Lugo
Tampa, Florida
Reported: 10 months ago

Currently lots of sheepshead been biting along with some sharks and sand trout. The cold weather has slowed down some bites but the back creeks have been shows to catch them

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Christian Lugo Tampa, Florida Reported: 10 months ago

Currently lots of sheepshead been biting along with some sharks and sand trout. The cold weather has slowed down some bites but the back creeks have been shows to catch them

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Tyson Wallerstein
Clearwater, Florida
Reported: 11 months ago

Artic air early this week will certainly cool off what’s been a hot wintertime bite. Unseasonably warm water temperatures over the past couple of weeks have helped to get all inshore fish moving around better, especially snook. A good snook bite can be hard to come by this time of...

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Tyson Wallerstein Clearwater, Florida Reported: 11 months ago

Artic air early this week will certainly cool off what’s been a hot wintertime bite. Unseasonably warm water temperatures over the past couple of weeks have helped to get all inshore fish moving around better, especially snook. A good snook bite can be hard to come by this time of year. however they are opportunists and if conditions are right they can feed aggressively especially in the afternoon. Redfish are much more cold tolerant than the snook and can be found shadowing mullet schools in both the Intercoastal waterway as well as the expansive flats of Tampa Bay. Target the first half of the incoming tide for redfish right now. The lower water will make it easier to spot the mullet schools and in turn put you where you need to be for the redfish. Chunk baits such as ladyfish and mullet work excellent under these conditions, allowing you to make extremely long casts to comfortable fish. Scaled sardines a.k.a. pilchards can still be cast netted in volume most days and have been the ticket for getting the snook fired up. The bait has moved deeper and can often be found near the bay bridges in deeper dredge holes. Look for high diving pelicans to give the bait away, typically the higher they dive the bigger the bait. Snook have been willing to creep out of backwater creeks over the last several days, but don’t expect them to venture too far from their safe zone. Target mangrove shoreline’s that have small feeder creeks along them on the later portion of the afternoon incoming tide

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Ike Carrasquillo
Tampa, Florida
Reported: 11 months ago

Pass few weeks have been dead, no Charters for two months because of the hurricanes but it has picked up for me and I have several this month and next month. The Sheepshead action is good on the grass flats, oyster beds and anywhere crustacean grows. The Flounder action has...

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Ike Carrasquillo Tampa, Florida Reported: 11 months ago

Pass few weeks have been dead, no Charters for two months because of the hurricanes but it has picked up for me and I have several this month and next month. The Sheepshead action is good on the grass flats, oyster beds and anywhere crustacean grows. The Flounder action has been slow for me but the dark muddy waters in tge back country has produced Blackdrum, Mullet and Gar.

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Wade Osborne
Tampa, Florida
Reported: 11 months ago

Even though the sheepshead spawning season doesn’t start until February, the cooler water temperatures have them feeding very aggressively. On a recent charter, my clients specifically requested sheepshead, and the day did not disappoint. On the very first cast of the day, they reeled in a 16-inch keeper. Throughout the...

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Wade Osborne Tampa, Florida Reported: 11 months ago

Even though the sheepshead spawning season doesn’t start until February, the cooler water temperatures have them feeding very aggressively. On a recent charter, my clients specifically requested sheepshead, and the day did not disappoint. On the very first cast of the day, they reeled in a 16-inch keeper. Throughout the charter we must have caught close to 30 sheepshead, along with numerous redfish, seatrout, and snook. At the end of the day, they went home with six nice sized keeper sheepshead. If you enjoy catching redfish, now is the perfect time to catch plenty. Even though most are rats, “under slot-sized redfish” they are still fun to catch. The same can be said for seatrout. Clients have been catching some of the largest seatrout of the year recently. Seatrout schoolup in the winter, so when you hit the right spot numerous fish in the 15 to 19-inch slot range can be landed. Snook are also making their presence known. I’m finding snook mixed in with the redfish and seatrout also. Snook are closed to harvest until March 1st, so it’s strictly catch and release.

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Cody Beckman
Tampa, Florida
Reported: 1 year ago

Inshore fishing and backcountry fishing has been extremely productive, averaging 30 fish days and the cooler water has redfish, trout and big snook fired up. The nearshore wrecks are holding good numbers of mangrove snapper and sheepshead with some spanish mackerel mixed in Weather has been ideal and looks to...

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Cody Beckman Tampa, Florida Reported: 1 year ago

Inshore fishing and backcountry fishing has been extremely productive, averaging 30 fish days and the cooler water has redfish, trout and big snook fired up. The nearshore wrecks are holding good numbers of mangrove snapper and sheepshead with some spanish mackerel mixed in Weather has been ideal and looks to stay that way for the next few weeks. Definitely a great time of year to get on the water

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Phil Pegley
Ruskin, Florida
Reported: 1 year ago

People in West and Southwest Florida will not take the term hurricane season lightly .After the hit we took from Helene and Milton .as we patch up and pick up the pieces we quickly realize beautiful mother ocean still surrounds us and has so many positives to offer the water...

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Phil Pegley Ruskin, Florida Reported: 1 year ago

People in West and Southwest Florida will not take the term hurricane season lightly .After the hit we took from Helene and Milton .as we patch up and pick up the pieces we quickly realize beautiful mother ocean still surrounds us and has so many positives to offer the water cleared quickly, and our Amazing fishery got right back on track booking through Captains experiences we got to meet Kai and Zach, snook , redfish, and trout. We're all first for them, and they were up for the challenge. Fall patterns have concentrated our fish. And persistence has paid off with some of the nicest Snook of the year . and this past full moon has been stellar on resurging numbers of large speckled trout Get with Captains experiences and get your trips booked today

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Wade Osborne
Tampa, Florida
Reported: 1 year ago

Fall Has Finally Arrived Until recently, we hadn’t had any typical fall weather here in the Tampa Bay area, but it’s finally here. Most of November’s water temperatures remained in the mid-70’s. Usually, by now the water temperature on the grass flats is in the low 70’s to upper 60’s...

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Wade Osborne Tampa, Florida Reported: 1 year ago

Fall Has Finally Arrived Until recently, we hadn’t had any typical fall weather here in the Tampa Bay area, but it’s finally here. Most of November’s water temperatures remained in the mid-70’s. Usually, by now the water temperature on the grass flats is in the low 70’s to upper 60’s Snook are still open to harvest until the first of December, so you only have a couple of weeks to take advantage of it. My clients are still catching plenty of snook. Some are in the slot of 28 to 33 inches, but most are just under or over the keeper slot. Oscar Santana and Kinh Shiau fished with me earlier this month and Oscar caught and released a 34” snook unharmed. It turns out, Oscar had never fished before and this snook was the first fish he’d ever caught. Unbelievably, he continued to out fish Kinh during the rest of the charter. Talk about beginner’s luck, now Oscar is ruined for life… The redfish action continues to please. Schools of redfish are still plentiful, but now I’m encountering more rat reds. I don’t have a problem with that because they’re still fun to catch and if you never have, they’re a blast. Riley found that out himself recently when he caught his first redfish. When looking to take one home for dinner though, I move on in search of bigger fish. There are still larger fish around, I just have to do a little looking. Seatrout, out of all the inshore species, remain the most dependable, as far as, fish for dinner. It’s been a banner year for seatrout, and I look for that trend to continue right through the end of the year.

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