Inshore-
We are still dealing with the weather around the area, but that has not slowed down the fish too badly. We are coming up on a full moon, so the tides have been moving pretty good lately and that means the fish are ready to eat. We had a good start to last weekend before weather went bad and now it is clearing up the second half of this week and shaping for a beautiful weekend.
The redfish are excited around the entire area! We are catching lots of redfish around the passes at night. During the day plenty of them around the grass flats, mangrove shorelines, oyster bars and more. Lots of redfish action is picking up throughout the bay area right now. During the day, they are more towards the bottom in deeper areas or looking for shaded areas hitting cut bait most often. During the night, early morning and closer to dusk we are seeing more active fish moving around chasing live baits and lures. Soft plastic paddle tails are a great option for the redfish in almost any situation where they are actively feeding. We are even seeing them hit the flairhawk style lures that the snook love in the passes.
Snook are still biting well too but have slowed down and spread out more lately. During the night in the passes we are not seeing huge congregations of aggressive fish like we had through the summer, but there are still a few fish around. During the day there’s still a handful of juvenile fish out on the beaches and the occasional big girl but most of the snook have moved back off the beaches and out of the passes and headed back into the bay. As the water cools they drift more towards the upper bay and to the mouths of rivers and bayous where they can count on that more accountable water temps and that dark bay mud bottom that radiates heat during the day to keep them from ‘freezing’ when water temps drop around those cold fronts of the winter. This migration up into the bay has definitely started and each cold front will push more fish to these areas and out of the passes and off the beaches.
Trout action has been a little slower due to weather, but those able to get out there to the flats found em biting well around the edges of the flats and around the mangroves. The lower tides concentrate these guys around those potholes on or adjacent to the flats and has really produced some good catches of trout on soft plastics, live shrimp, or live white baits.
Mangrove snapper fishing still going well around the structures of the area. We are seeing a lot of these guys around the structures biting small pieces of shrimp or white bait around docks, bridges, piers, jetties, or rock piles. The bridges of Tampa bay and local fishing piers are great options to target the mangroves.
Near Shore & Offshore-
Due to weather fishing near shore and offshore has been tricky to access. However, we have gotten lucky at the start of last weekend and towards the end of this week. We had a great Saturday bite last weekend right before the weather went bad Sunday. The red grouper were jumping in the boat on the Flying HUB 2 private fishing charter that fished around 110-150ft of water. This area should be producing awesome fishing this coming weekend into the start of the coming week while we have a little bit of a weather window. Plus, around that same depth the lane snapper, big vermillions and mangrove snapper are biting well too. You have a chance for some kingfish on the flat line too.
In closer, around 70-100ft of water the HUB had a great trip on lane snapper, some vermillion a few mangroves and a handful of red grouper. Closer to shore in this near shore range we are still catching the red grouper, but they get bigger and more prolific a little deeper past around 100-110ft of water. Were seeing some mackerel getting more aggressive and prolific near shore and even picked up a few small kingfish. Both great signs that the ‘fall’ kingfish and mackerel run is just around the corner as the water temps get right.
Out deeper, around 150-170ft and beyond to 250ft we are seeing some great amberjack action, better chances at some fat gag grouper, and some big red grouper are out there too with a steady mangrove bite and the biggest vermillions and some nice porgies. Plus, out here is where you have a shot for wahoo along with better chances at kingfish right now.
Hoping the weather will start to calm a bit now so we can get back after it near shore and offshore. The hogfish bite is going to pick up anytime, gags will start moving in and those kingfish and mackerel in big numbers are not too far away near shore! Exciting time of year for sure, but we all must pay extremely close attention to the weather before your trip, the night before and the morning of and again while out there if you can because this time of the year weather can change ridiculously quickly and it can be dangerous especially with cooling water temps.
For more fishing reports, photos, videos and more check out Hubbard’s Marina on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Snap Chat just simply search @HubbardsMarina and don’t forget our family motto, “If You’re too busy to go fishing, You’re just too busy!” Thanks for reading and checking out our report – Capt Dylan Hubbard, Hubbard’s Marina – Call or Txt me anytime at (727)393-1947 | https://HubbardsMarina.com
Upcoming up at Hubbard’s Marina
Florida fisherman made it to tarpon springs! Now that the Florida is at dry dock it will be pulled out of the water and inspected, painted, and some other fine details touched up before she slides back in the water and heads home around the third week of October for our next 39 hour scheduled October 23rd!
Flying HUB 2 is up and running with BRAND NEW Yamaha systems and new white 425’s. We are excited to get this boat back offshore its ran a few trips but due to weather we are pretty much tied up dreaming of heading back offshore but this coming Sunday’s 12 hour extreme looks like we finally have some great weather to capitalize on!
READY FOR 2021 BOOKINGS? Some people have been asking about next years schedule. Keep in mind our 12,39 and 44 hour trips will not be available for booking in 2021 until around the start of December. Most likely Tuesday Dec 1st around 11am is when that specialty trip schedule for 2021 will be opened for bookigns. We are building our 2021 schedule now for our other trips like the 5 hours, 10 hours, dolphin tours, island trips and others and those trips will be all built and open for bookings by around Mid-October!
During the week a great time to visit! If your one of those who can escape during the work week this is the time of year to visit us. We have had super light loads during the week on our 5,10 and 12 hour trips! Plus, the 39 hours are averaging only 50-60% full lately too especially during the week.
Weekends are still much less busy then they were in the summer, so either way it’s a good time of year to get out on the water!
Don’t forget about our brand-new system that allows you to now TEXT OUR OFFICE if you’d rather not call us! Now you can call or text us at (727)393-1947 so for quick questions or updates or anything you can reach out even easier.
Fox 13’s Good Day Tampa Bay show has picked up a fishing segment with Capt Dylan Hubbard Scheduled for every Friday morning starting around 8:15am! These segments will have tons of fishing tips, tricks, updates and more. Please tune into Fox 13 on Friday mornings to watch the show and if you are not local, you can watch it LIVE on their website -> http://www.fox13news.com/live
Enjoy learning more about fishing? Attended a seminar or watched our LIVE Q&A show Sunday nights but want to see the tips and tricks in action on the boat? We have filmed a mangrove snapper, grouper and red snapper mastery course with Salt Strong and they built me my own private page to give my fishing friends steep discounts on these crazy cool courses… PLUS, you also have the opportunity to become an insider member and join the community with great giveaways, raffles, the strike score tool, spot dissections, tons of free fishing videos and tips for inshore, near shore and offshore and MORE this is a super cool family of anglers and the positivity and openness of anglers is wild in this group… in the community people share what they caught, when the caught it, what tide they caught it, what bait or lure they caught it one and often WHERE they caught it too… you HAVE to check this out if you like fishing: https://SaltStrong.com/Hubbard
Regular’s club
We are getting prepped for our regular’s club renewals starting around the start of November and then our NEW regular’s club sign ups that will begin around end of Nov early Dec for our 2021 clubs.
Since the regular’s club, which is our loyalty program, expires at the end of each calendar year no matter when you are signed up it would make sense to wait until we are ready for 2021 signs ups to join us if you would like!
If you want some information on the clubs, shoot me an email or text with your email and we can send you out the club info and add you to our 2021 sign up list so when sign ups do start we will reach out to you!
Remember, you can now call or TEXT our main office line – (727)393-1947
Captain Dylan Hubbard
Vice president and Co-Owner
(727)393-1947 ext. 306
