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Post by stuckintherocks on Jun 15, 2023 8:45:02 GMT -5
Arrived on ssp at about 12am, set up at the big opening just after the baitshop. The water was infested with ladyfish, noticed the surface activity and big blowups in the distance right away, threw a popper and loaded the cooler with cut baits. The lady fish were huge, 23in long and just extremely fat, they have been eating well. Fun to catch. Started fishing my rock piles and was surprised to not catch a single grunt or snapper. Only catching small red groupers and what I believe were jolthead porgys ? Some of the porgys had some good size to them running around 14-15in wasn’t sure regulations so I tossed them back. At this time I was still fairly certain I would get on a snapper bite. Never did. After a couple hours fishing the rocks with small baits I started sending out pinfish and ladyfish hunks. Fed flipper and got my a$$ whooped by a blacktip shark, bout 5 1/2 foot.. won the battle but lost the war, she made a good run under the pier and broke me off. Lots of tarpon activity but no takers on freelined pilchards. Took a nap. Woke up around 7am, tide was incoming, noticed right away that the water was “mackerel color” no idea any of the science behind it but everytime the water is turbulent, has a certain color/clarity I always have luck with Mack’s so despite the heat I got to work. Tried some spoons and jigs with no luck, but noticed the guy down from me start catching some on freelined cut baits, I had a float rig set up already so I tried that but with no takers, quickly switched to freelining and the action began, only managed 4 mackerel ranging 14-18in missed some bigger ones, actually missed a ton of good ones but it has been so long since I got on some Mack’s that my hooksets were… rusty to say the least. Guy next to me had much better luck than I did and must have gotten close to his limit and landed his larger bites. Bigger ones looked to be about 21-23in. Guy next to him had much better/worse luck than both of us. As he hooked a very large cobia on a pinfish on bottom, big brownie was definitely 40+ in and super fat, unfortunately she popped off the hook right infront of the drop net and swam off to see another day. Poor guy was heart broken. As the tide switched to outgoing I only saw 2 more Mack’s over the rails then action was completely dead around 2pm. I saw something very peculiar on the east side that will have me questioning my sanity for quite some time and I have to ask… are there any subspecies of whale that could possibly make its way into the bay?
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Post by shot33gun9 on Jun 15, 2023 11:00:50 GMT -5
Whales? I've seen lots out there but they were not of the marine species, they were human
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Post by Flatsrunner on Jun 15, 2023 11:11:23 GMT -5
Have been some reported off beaches years back, none that I've heard inside the bay, maybe too shallow except for the shipping channel, Shark maybe, used to be a large Hammerhead shark that hung around the skyway feeding on tarpon.
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Post by stuckintherocks on Jun 15, 2023 11:29:35 GMT -5
Soo it’s okay if y’all think I’m nuts because on here I’m just a name with some fishing reports, what I saw was a huge boil in the water, and up came 3 brown tails, 2 smaller babies, and one giant large momma tail, the tails moved vertically like a mammal, but the size of the large one was just unreal… about 18-20 foot, about the size of a boat. They surfaced very quickly and got back down, I did not get a good look at the animals themselves, only the tails. If there is no possibility of a smaller whale species then my next question is how large do manatees grow and has anybody seen them out towards the middle of the pier like that ?
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Post by shot33gun9 on Jun 15, 2023 11:51:01 GMT -5
I have never seen manatees that far out, but they could I suppose. Whales roam the gulf so it's possible they may move in to the bay at times
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Post by Flatsrunner on Jun 15, 2023 11:56:52 GMT -5
great hammerhead sharks get up to 20ft and are known to visit Tampa bay waters, manatees up to 10ft.I Don't think your nuts, We can only judge ourselves accurately. lol
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Post by carlf on Jun 15, 2023 20:20:35 GMT -5
No size limit on those porgies, those were perfect eating size!!
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Post by stuckintherocks on Jun 15, 2023 22:27:27 GMT -5
No size limit on those porgies, those were perfect eating size!! I had a bad feeling someone would say that… |
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Post by fishsci on Jun 16, 2023 9:43:26 GMT -5
No size limit on those porgies, those were perfect eating size!! I had a bad feeling someone would say that… Do not feel too bad. Some people, including me, do not really like the taste of porgies. They often have a strong taste that is like iodine that some people notice and dislike, while others seem to not notice it. The last that I read is that they acquire that taste from from what they are feeding on, usually marine worms (polychaetes), or sometimes secondarily from prey organisms (like shrimp) that have been ingesting small worms. The compound that gives this iodine-like taste is bromophenol, and it is bromine, not iodine, that causes the taste. |
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Post by fishsci on Jun 16, 2023 10:01:44 GMT -5
I just remembered from what I learned long ago, that one of the most commonly attributed sources of the iodine taste in porgies comes from them eating bryozoans (so-calledl moss animals) that grow in colonies on hard bottoms and look like fine moss growing on the rocks or pilings. Byrozoa are very common in Tampa Bay, and are abundant on the pilings and rock piles. So it is likely that porgies caught there would have at least some trace of the iodine taste that some might find objectionable.
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Post by carlf on Jun 16, 2023 18:41:14 GMT -5
The ones I caught offshore made amazing sashimi
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Post by fishfinderbill on Jun 16, 2023 20:24:15 GMT -5
Stuckintherocks: Having read your report, I have to ask myself, is he reporting on the SSP that I have known and loved these past couple of years or is it somewhere else that I have not experienced?
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Post by stuckintherocks on Jun 16, 2023 21:19:37 GMT -5
Stuckintherocks: Having read your report, I have to ask myself, is he reporting on the SSP that I have known and loved these past couple of years or is it somewhere else that I have not experienced? Hahaha I think the only thing I’m doing any differently than anyone else is the sheer amount of hours I’m willing to put in to my one fishing session a week, most trips I fish straight through both tides twice.. my theory is there is always fish there but you gotta be in the right place at the right time with the right bait presented perfectly.. and I’ll try every damn method I know until I figure out what’s working. Sometimes all the stars align n sometimes they don’t. I will say this trip had the most daytime action I’ve seen all year, that was the first cobia I’ve ever seen on ssp and it was a damn nice one.. |
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Post by fishsci on Jun 17, 2023 9:28:38 GMT -5
The ones I caught offshore made amazing sashimi Offshore SW Florida, or offshore northern GOM? I found ones I caught offshore SW FL had a very strong iodine taste and I could not eat them. But that was cooked, not raw. I do, however, know that they have a very nice firm texture that would be good for sashimi, but I did not try that. The taste might be much better raw. However, as I said, the literature says that the bromophenol content is dependent on the diet of the porgy. Since they eat different things at different places, and at different times, it is to be expected that the iodine taste is not always strong. Plus, as I said, some people seem to not notice the iodine taste, some notice it but it is not strong and not objectionable, and others notices to the degree that they do not want to eat it. |
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Post by carlf on Jun 17, 2023 19:35:47 GMT -5
Caught them on Double Eagle out of Clearwater earlier this spring.
The ones I caught up in Alabama out of Orange Beach also made good sashimi.
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Post by tesseract on Jun 18, 2023 13:37:45 GMT -5
Probably a manta ray -- I saw one that was 12 feet wide. The thing was like an underwater flying saucer, lol.
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Post by fishsci on Jun 18, 2023 15:11:22 GMT -5
Probably a manta ray -- I saw one that was 12 feet wide. The thing was like an underwater flying saucer, lol. That is very likely, particularly because he saw two little fins and a big one. If the two little fins were on either side of the large one, the little ones were the wing tips of a manta. They swim in a manner in which the tips of their wings often come up above the water at the same time. |
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Post by fishsci on Jun 18, 2023 15:15:19 GMT -5
Caught them on Double Eagle out of Clearwater earlier this spring. The ones I caught up in Alabama out of Orange Beach also made good sashimi. Thinking back after your posts, I now remember that I DID try porgy caught in around 80 ft off Venice as sashimi about 15 years ago, and they did make good sashimi. The raw meat had only a small hint of the iodine taste and it was not objectionable, and just just made it, as they say, taste like the ocean. |
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Post by stuckintherocks on Jun 20, 2023 1:46:55 GMT -5
Probably a manta ray -- I saw one that was 12 feet wide. The thing was like an underwater flying saucer, lol. That definitely makes sense ! |
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