Anna Maria November Fall Fishing

Anna Maria Island Fishing Guide
Captain Aaron Lowman – November 15, 2016
Grouper, Snook, Redfish, Mackerel

—Fishing near shore structure in Tampa Bay and around Anna Maria Island has been big this month, especially for snapper, spanish mackerel, kingfish, gag grouper, sharks and cobia.
—There is still plenty of bait around the beach with predators in tow. For bait, live shiners and threadfins have been the ticket on the reef. Heavy live chumming really turns the bite on, and keeps it lit.
—Gag grouper are moving into near shore/inshore structure. I’m catching a bunch of keeper sized fish, greater than 24″, in water as shallow as 6ft. It’s another one of the perks of the fall season, big gag grouper move inshore.
—Inshore, a red hot snook bite continues as the first cool fronts of the season push through. Starting to see a few more of the large females chewing. Schools of redfish are making a show on Tampa Bay flats, once again. Last month’s red tide event seemed to scatter these guys a bit.
—Another fall seasonal treat are tripletail. I’ve had success running lines of stone crab traps looking for tripletail under the trap floats. They will usually strike a well placed live bait or shrimp imitation. Tripletail are fantastic on the table, and can put on quite a show once hooked – many leap out of the water!