Tampa inland fishing?

[snook.girl]

Hey....anyone know of decent spots to fish inland? Kinda lack a boat so we do what we can from the shore. We hit up Picnic, Gandy, Causeway, Skyway, 4th Street, and Davis Island by the airport. Caught a few ladies and trout, tons of kitty, small snook, sting/manta rays and 2 small sharks (shovel nose and a black tip). But for the most part, we've been unsuccessful, either too small or out of season.

We went to Gandy (on the rocks next to Friendship Trail Bridge) last night (6/25/09) and saw at least 10 huge sting/manta rays real close to shore line. The boyfriend said that was a good sign for cobia. Afterwards, we went to Picnic and saw some pretty big snook hittin top water with mullet. No bites either location though.

We do catch live bait (grunts, greenbacks, needle nose, crab for shark) and will buy some squid and medium shrimp. If that doesn't get us anywhere, we rig the rods so we can jig. That doesn't seem to make any difference though.


Help!! lol. <-----I need my rod to do that!

[snook.girl]

Thanks!! We mainly fish the Tampa side of Gandy. We'll park at the trail bridge and walk across Gandy to the other side so we can fish that canal. They must spawn over there or something bc we've seen alot of them running through.

Couple weeks ago at Gandy (we walked across to the canal), I had a massive hit and run on my rod. Half my line was gone in the matter of seconds. By the time I tried to tighten my drag and horse him a little towards shore, he snapped the line like it was a twig. Crazy thing is, my boyfriend cast his rod out and managed to hook onto my broken line out in the water. When he grabbed it with his hands, he felt something pull on it making him think it was something big. The fish managed to get itself off the line but my jig head and lure was still on.

I also got a good run at Picnic Island (it's where I caught my first big snook). He took off and snapped my line before I had much of a chance to do anything. No clue what that was but it hit hard.

Thinking about it gets me bc chances like that on shore are hard to come by.

[james380]

There are a couple guys on here familiar with the area you're referring too. They just haven't been on yet. Snook Mook and Pale Rider will most likely drop you some info. You might even try PMing one of them.