Absolute Florida Flats Fishing and Guide Service, reports one of the best spring fishing seasons in years, all species are on hand right now, Tarpon, Snook, Red-fish, Spotted Sea Trout, Jack Crevalle, Spanish Mackerel, Cobia and more! The school’s of migratory bait-fish are here in force, live bait fishing for Snook, Red-fish, Spotted Sea Trout the ( inshore slam ) has been excellent around the big new moon and full moon tides, Trophy Snook are in the passes and on the mangrove shorelines and beach’s all with a healthy appetite and ready to fight for there life not knowing the season is closed for the spawning period. Red-fish are around in and willing in small numbers but good sized fish with 4 wheel drive, and the good slot sized Spotted Sea Trout are still available and great pan-fried, and usually some oversized fish to 5lb. The Giant Tarpon Season is upon us now as the Migratory big fish run has started, on the beaches and on some winds, (westerly) the back-country,  pods of adult tarpon are showing up and down the Florida gulf coast light winds the past few mornings has made spotting the Tarpon easy as they roll lazily on the surface. Long casts are a must so not to spook these fish, try not making your presence known, as if you were sneaking out to raid the fridge, Best baits include live small blue crabs, pilchard’s, thread-herring, pin-fish and pumpkinseed shad. Get way ahead of the rolling fish and set up, let them come to you, be courteous to other anglers do not rush up on someone stalking the Tarpon stealthily.  Give them all the room they need to take there shot, usually your in the right spot as there will be several schools and pods using the same line down the beach.

 Absolute Florida Flats Fishing and Guide Service reports,  we had inshore fishing charters as well as nearshore fishing charters through out the week, both the flats fishing and deep sea fishing were outstanding with great conditions, winds from 5 to 15 mph out of the east southeast to southeast right on around to southwest, morning temperatures were in the 60′s and highs in the 80′s, water temp’s were mid 70′s. Shallow water inshore flats fishing trips were producing nice Spotted Sea Trout, Redfish, Snook, Jack-Crevalle, Spanish Mackerel and some Cobia beginning to cruise the inshore fishing flats from Clearwater to Tarpon Springs and north to New Port Richey, Port Richey.

The Nearshore fishing trips are producing non-stop action on big Spanish Mackerel, King-Mackerel, Reef Spinner Shark and some Cobia over the Wrecks. On one recent trip, Capt. Rich Knox had the pleasure of having Lydia Nichols her son Ben (in bottom photo 9-1/2 yrs. old)  and Mom from Morgantown, West Virgina,  on the reefs and caught Good King-fish 0ne after another with some Spanish Mackerel mixed in, all on light tackle spinning rods anchored on a huge rock and pile of bait-fish, the bite lasted all morning.

                                               Inshore fishing charters were also productive using pilchards as bait, large Spotted Sea Trout, Red-fish, Snook, smaller Spanish Mackerel, Flounder and Jack Crevalle were on hand to do battle with 8 lb. spinning tackle Joe Kofira from Newfoundland, Pennsylvania caught Gator Trout one after the other on a 1/2 day fishing trip and some Spanish Mackerel, near the end of the fishing charter Joe hooked in to a Cobia?,  near a rock-pile, that we had to pull anchor and follow only to loose after a long fight! Early on, Wayne Mitchell of Dunedin Fl.  and his group of 4 anglers loaded the boat with nice Trout and Red-fish,  fishing the Clearwater Fl. area inshore flats.

Absolute Florida Flats Fishing reports excellent inshore fishing along with nearshore fishing, our fishing guide service ran backcountry fishing trips to nearshore reefs and wreck fishing this week with outstanding success ! The bite is on every where Snook, Red-fish, Spotted Sea Trout and the occasional Cobia on our inshore flats fishing adventures and smoker King-fish, Spanish Mackerel and again Cobia slow trolling or anchored and chumming with Pilchard’s over hard bottom reef’s or wrecks. White-bait is the key to good catches’ as that is what the fish are looking for, sometimes tough to find it’s worth spending the time to gather up at least a couple hundred ! Use them on the hook and live chum some in the area you are fishing and it won’t be long till you know if your target species is in the vicinity.

                                               Even on our weaker tides the fish are responding to an easy meal, fish the best part of the tide for best results, these conditions should last well into April as long as Mother Nature co-operates, the weather has been outstanding, highs in the low 80′s and early mornings in the low 60′s, perfect with winds out of the east 5 -15 mph and a sea -breeze in the afternoon to cool things off, also water temperatures are in the lower 70′s.

                                                Capt. Rich Knox had the pleasure of David, son Mike and Grandson Jacob on a nearshore fishing charter this week and where kept busy with King-fish to and over 30 lbs. and beautiful Spanish Mackerel to 5-6 lb. regularly, on  several fish we had to be extra careful as we wrapped line around numerous stone crab trap bouy’s, but got unwrapped quickly, these traps are placed on the good live rock and hard bottom areas that these fish frequent as does big pods of bait-fish, if always scan the horizon for diving birds or the bait schools on the surface, troll around them, almost always there is a Big king-fish right there underneath them, it’s game on after that with a properly rigged good-sized bait-fish!

Absolute Florida Flats Fishing ,and Guide Service reports  running inshore flats fishing charters all week with excellent results, Snook fishing, Redfishing, Spotted Sea Trout fishing,  in the same day have been common on good tide days!  Fishing out of Tarpon Springs, Clearwater, and New Port Richey has been producing good numbers of all the flats fishing species with the arrival of the migratory bait-fish (pilchards) all on light tackle spinning outfits,  8lb. to 10lb. and depending on the size of the bait-fish #1 to # 2/0 live bait hooks. The incoming tide has been good for the Trout and Redfish with some Snook mixing in, everything is changing there diet from the normal winter food sources to the pilchards although it’s tough to beat a silver dollar sized pinfish under a popping cork for the red’s.

                                              On Wednesday Capt. Rich had the privilege of having Sean Storey and his son Zach from Quebec, Canada, a logger and Salmon fishing guide,  on a full day guided fishing trip, the two had great success catching and releasing Snook, Redfish, and Spotted Sea trout , from inshore flats fishing spots on the west central florida gulf coast, including some scenic backcountry fishing holes.

                                                Nearshore reef and wreck fishing is heating up with Spanish Mackerel, Cobia and the King- Mackerel are beginning to show, with the arrival of several bait species, spanish sardines and hard tails along with the pilchards. these species are a blast on light tackle,  slow trolling or anchoring over good structure and chumming.

Capt. Rich Knox of Absolute Florida Flats Fishing reports having run several inshore fishing charters out of  the Tarpon Springs, Fl. area,  and fishing the inshore saltwater flats to Clearwater and New Port Richey, the week ending March 4th, the water temperatures are now in the 70′s and the mornings where in the high 60′s creating some fog issues but the fishing remained outstanding with the arrival of the migratory bait-fish the pilchards. All Hands on Deck, big Spotted Sea Trout, Redfish, and the occasional Snook sticking his head out are all receptive to the bait-fish which never really disappeared totally from some Backcountry fishing hangouts, this winter! The nearshore fishing is also improving with there arrival, Spanish Mackerel, King-Mackerel, Cobia are all following the schools of different variety of bait fish.

                                                            Spring Saltwater fishing will remain very -good with the exception of a passing minor cold-front that we are experiencing this weekend, Saturday night to Sunday look wet and windy!  The inshore fishing will rebound as soon as the wind subsides, it may take some time to gather up the bait fish immediately after a front, but numerous artificial baits still deliver good fishing guide trips this time of year. Mirro-lures,  Mirro-dine  that imitates the pilchard to a T and has the exact same action when twitched and retrieved slowly to moderately depending on the current and water temperatures, sometimes out performs the real thing, along with Berkleys jerk-shad, 1/4 oz. jigs with similar bait-fish imitations and you can cover way more ground this way, the fish will be moving depending on Mother Nature, another hunt and destroy situation until you find out where they have moved to.

                                                          This is a great time of year for the long rod (fly rod- enthusiast),  both inshore fishing and nearshore fishing using pilchard imitations in a variety of lengths either in the clouser or deciever variety in the (pilchard look) an 8 to 10 weight rod will do with a 9′ flouro-carbon leader and depending on where you’re fishing with floating line or intermediate sinking tip’s. Chum and switch, is very effective on all the above mentioned species1

..Absolute Florida Flats Fishing,  reports excellent Spotted Sea Trout fishing in the central Florida and gulf Coast areas, saltwater fishing charters are yielding many big Trout, numbers in the upper 20″, in the Clearwater, Tarpon Springs, and New Port Richey inshore flats fishing venue.  Capt. Rich Knox’s longtime fishing guide service has been leading clients to some great light tackle inshore fishing, strong runs, head shaking, fat yellow mouth Trout on all our fishing charters. This week running several fishing trips out of Anclote Village Marina near Tarpon Springs had George and his two sons John and Matt,  returning for another fishing fix from the north, caught,  kept some and released some beautiful Trout totaling about 2 dozen, along the west central Fl. gulf coast, using all artificial lures, Berkley 5″ and 7″ jerk-shad, Mirrolure’s Mirrodine, And 1/4 oz. jigs with a paddle tail in the 3″ variety and pilchard imitation.  Saltwater inshore fishing charters have been producing very good numbers of fish even in just a 1/2 day outing this year due to the spring like weather were having, water temperatures have rarely fallen into the fifties,  even Red-fishing charters have been successful when the tides are right,  upper slot red’s in the 25- 27 ” and 5 to 7 lb. range are not uncommon. There are still schools of pilchards ( baitfish ) here that usually leave us for the winter and vacation south in the Florida-Keys, but they sometimes are hard to find and you really don’t need them this time of year, plus it takes time to cast net them up in the morning and your in jeopardy of losing the best part of the tide.

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Fishing Reorts from, Absolute Florida flats Fishing, longtime guide service 20 yr. running flats fishing charters out of Tarpon Springs Fl., at nearby Anclote Village Marina, went on a inshore fishing trip Tuesday the 14th, right after the coldest front of the year, on our flats fishing charter were Mike and Susan visiting friends Dick and Linda from Hudson, Fl. , when we left the dock at 10 o’clock the water temperature was 55* F, we gave the day a little time to warm up and there was a late tide, heading south to Clearwater Fl. to our 1st stop of the day. Slowly trolling motoring down the edge of a flat ran off several nice sized Spotted Sea Trout, we set up immediately hopeing we had’nt run the fish into the next zip-code, the wind was very light barely blowing out of the south, the air temperature was rising steadily as we fished in all directions trying to locate the fish. Using a combination of artificial lures and live select shrimp the tide picked up and began to move nicely when the action started, a nice size Trout measuring 17″on a shrimp, we got the skunk out of the boat, a few minutes later another  and another, the pinfish were sure hungry as a live shrimp didn’t last long unless it was in the fish. By the end of the 1/2 day of fishing we had caught  over 15-20 Trout, and some Ladyfish we were even releasing alot of the Trout,  they got bigger as the day went on, some well over the 20″ upper limit, end of the day high air  temperature was 74* F and the water temp rose to 57* F, this week the weather man is predicting temp’s in the 80′s, fishing on  the inshore flats will just improve, red-fish and even snook were biting the week before.

Absolute Florida Flats Fishing,  reports good Spotted Sea Trout fishing on  a ½ day Flats fishing charter on Thursday February 9^th, Capt. Rich meet his client at the dock in near Tarpon Springs at 7:30 am. as we were a couple days past the full-moon, the tide didn’t really begin to come in good south in Clearwater, Palm Harbor area till 8 am., so we had a nice morning run on the SILVERKING flats skiff. The wind was out of the North East at 10 to 12 mph, we had a cloudy,  cool,  low sealing that I was grateful for, as Mike was wanting to fish artificial lures, when we arrived at our 1^st stop,  I lowered the Motor Guide Trolling motor down quietly and began working the outer edges of the flat with ¼ oz.jigs with a paddle tail baitfish imitation,  the 1^st cast produced a nice Trout in the 20” range, we power poled down, we would catch a dozen before we had caught them all or ran them off, fished on a ways and released a few more. Mike and I hit many  inshore  flats catching nice trout on most stops and several double- headers,  fish over 20” and 5 lb. , as we fished our way back to the Tarpon Springs and New Port Richey Area near the top of the tide switching back and forth from the jigs, jerk-shad and the Mirrodine  hard bait, the water temperature rose to a 68* F  high for the day,  we were fishing some rock piles and hooked a nice snook, we got a good look at him,  but he or probably she,  didn’t take long to wear through the 20 lb. leader, we were using, very exciting, nice strong run ,  a real-good sign for February, soon all the flats species should be on hand, I have even heard fishing reports from other longtime fishing guides that they are beginning to encounter King Mackerel,  it’s  going to happen early,  get your gear ready . This would be a good time for the long-rod also with the amount of Tout and other things developing everyday, A clouser in the Pilchard look variety, or a deceiver in the shallower water will work real well,  use stealthy approach’s for these fish are very spooky in a foot or two of water !

Absolute Florida Flats Fishing reports, with longtime local guide, Capt. Rich Knox , ran several ½ day fishing charters out of Tarpon Springs, Fl. the week of January 30 th to February 5^th, even though we had a quarter moon phase we were able to connect with some real nice Spotted Sea Trout , using a combination of live select shrimp,  pilchards  and artificial lures, we also caught some acrobatic Ladyfish ( POOR MANS TARPON ) on light 8lb. spinning tackle. The fish were more receptive to the live shrimp than any other bait, jig’s worked well also. The tide in the mornings really didn’t get up very high so we were relegated to fishing  deep waters and some good drop-offs of productive inshore flats and river channels. The weather was outstanding, with high temperatures in the mid 70’s the morning lows were in the 50’s, wind breaker weather, as the dry cold ( 50’s F ) heated up quickly, there was a good bite on the outgoing tide in the morning and again after slack beginning of incoming tide the fish began to turn on you had to keep moving catching a few fish per stop. If this winter is any indication of what’s in store for us this spring,  it looks like it will begin early. You should call your favorite fishing  guide, and book a few days of some great inshore flats fishing, there will be a number of great Florida flats fishing opportunities. If your visiting the West Central Gulf Coast of Florida give us a call and lets go on a fishing trip full of MEMORIES we are only a thirty minute drive to our marina near Tarpon Springs if you are in the Tampa Bay area, New Port Richey, Clearwater, Florida Gulf Coast.

ABSOLUTE FLORIDA FLATS FISHING, went on a 1/2 day fishing trip with some long-time fishing friends on Tuesday 1/24/12, the day after the new moon phase, leaving the dock after 8 am. the air temperature was already into the 60′s the water temperature was 65* F, The sun was up a bit with a gentle S.E. wind, flat calm. On our first stop we eased up onto the fishing flat with a good incoming tide in the shallow draft flats fishing skiff by trolling motor,  we observed some real nervous water just south of  our position so we moved the charter boat into casting distance, two good casts in front of the fishes slow moving direction spooked them,  they rushed the boat, right toward us as we looked down the big black backed Spotted Sea Trout numbering 50 some fish in only a foot of water zoomed by us ! We waited a long minute till they settled, we slowly approached, made long cast, and began working the 5″ Berkley jerk-shad toward the fish with the tide, BOOM HUGE SURFACE STRIKE, a big GATOR TROUT, we got the skunk out of the boat ! We worked that school till they got tired of us and spread out with more water on the shallow inshore fishing flat. We continued to try and stay with the tide fishing from Clearwater, Tarpon Springs to New Port Richey almost every flat produced nice Trout and some Red-Fish, time really flew, at the end of and top of the tide 4 1/2 hrs. had gone by, with no moving water and a good sea breeze out of the west holding the tide in, we decided to return to the dock and clean plenty of fish for dinner, turned out to be Bill’s Birthday Gift, what a great day , just beautiful on the Florida Gulf Coast, the temperature when we hit the cleaning table was a balmy 76*, You wouldn’t have known it by Bill’s smile ! ! !  Ha  Ha.