Redfish bite strong in Anna Maria

By Capt. Bill Miller

The redfish bite is real strong in the Anna Maria area.

Earlier this week, Capt. Craig Madsen put me and the "Hooked on Fishing" film crew onto a redfish frenzy of epic proportions. Madsen anchored near a mangrove island, with a bordering oyster bar, and began to chum heavily with crippled white bait.

Within five minutes, the water started exploding as the redfish found the chummers and began to feed excitedly.

For the next two hours, Paul Michele, from Navionics, and myself caught redfish on every cast. We were counting the time it took from when the bait hit the water to get a strike, and the most time it took was 5 seconds.

With such a frenzy going on Michele switched to MirroLure and Yo-Zuri top water plugs and had such heavy action that the redfish destroyed both plugs. The redfish ranged from 24 to 37 inches.

Bill Caldwell reports the offshore fishing is good southwest of Bean Point. Fishing in 65 inches of water, Caldwell and friends caught mangrove, lane, yellow tail, grey and vermillion snapper, along with a limit of red grouper and a 10-pound Mahi Mahi.

Three other Mahis were hooked and lost. Many keeper sized red grouper were also vented and released.

Keeper snook reports have been slow. Anglers are reporting undersized snook are hitting white baits, but the big ones are hard to find.

Spanish mackerel have been reported from markers 5-6 in the Egmont ship channel all the way to the Whistler buoy. Trolling #1 silver spoons behind a #1 planer has been an effective way to cover lots of water and locate the macs.

Angler's bottom fishing in the same area have been free lining white bait in their chum line and also getting fast mackerel action.