Anna Maria Island Fishing Report: Captain Aaron Lowman-04-28-2014

Anna Maria Island Fishing Report
Snook-Trout-Redfish-Kingfish-Cobia
Captain Aaron Lowman – Fishing Report – April 28, 2014
Captain Aaron – (941)-465-8932

—–The last few weeks have seen the completion of the transition from cool to warm water fishing around Anna Maria Island. Snook, redfish and trout dominate the backwater scene while the near shore chatter revolves around cobia, mackerel, kingfish and permit. Offshore boats will be looking for red grouper, amberjack and snapper.
—–I have been finding the large trout in sandy potholes in the 3 to 5 foot range. It seems as the tide washes off the grass flats, the trout move out to potholes in this depth range to wait for a meal to be moved their way. Most of the redfish my clients have boated recently were hovering around docks or other structure. We usually bolster up our tackle a little to fish around these areas. You might want to use a little heavier leader also. Snook fishing has really improved this spring. We have been able to consistently catch nice snook in shallow areas of grass especially near a mangrove shoreline. The last of the incoming and the first couple hours of the outgoing tides are the best times.
——The kingfish are here and although trolling is a very effective way to catch them, I prefer to anchor on a likely offshore reef or wreck and chum until they show up. Sometimes I start with a chum bag of frozen, ground-up fish and hang that over the side to attract the smaller baitfish and hopefully some snapper. While fishing with light tackle for the snapper as the chum disperses, I continously break a live shiner in half (one at a time) and toss behind the boat. When I hear the “woosh” back in the chum line, I know it’s time to put away the little rods and try to catch what the chum has attracted. Many times, it happens to be a cobia or kingfish back there so I usually use a reel spooled with 15 pound test line and a 40 pound fluorocarbon leader.