Fishing report
Inshore – We have continued to see plentiful redfish around the pass lately especially early morning to mid-morning, but even throughout the daytime period we have seen some really prolific redfish action. This redfish bite continues in the back bay waters and across the area. They love the mangrove shorelines, oyster bars, and lately the passes too as they stage up to move offshore in large spawning aggregations. Smaller live pinfish have been the best live bait for the redfish, but remember these guys primarily feed on or very close to the bottom so if your fishing in deeper waters some weight helps to ensure that bait is near the bottom. If your fishing on the flats or the shorelines you should avoid the weight to make it appear more natural a presentation and that will keep your bait in the strike zone. Live shrimp has been working too using the same techniques, but the live pinfish are the best choice. For artificial baits, small paddle tail soft plastics in the 4-6” range with a small weighted jig head to keep your bait along the bottom has been the hot bite for redfish this week for our local anglers.
Snook are still around were catching some nice ones at night still around the bridges, docks and jetty using the live pinfish or pigfish, big live shrimp or the pass crabs. For snook, I would prefer to use the 3-5” pass crabs free lined around the structures in the passes for the most explosive topwater action. However, we have been seeing them eat just about anything that is nice and lively when they are ready to chew.
Mangrove snapper and mackerel still around the pass as well, we are seeing them most often on the green backs on the south side of Johns Pass where the water is deeper, and you get more tidal flow. If the green back is up near the surface the mackerel come to play when the water is moving, and the bait is around. When the water is moving more slowly, and your bait gets closer to the rocky bottom that’s when the mangrove snapper come up to eat. This action makes for an easy and fun day of fishing fun for the whole family. With the light tackle setups like a 2500 or 3000 series spinning reel with a medium action 6-7’ rod and 10-15lb test it’s a great time on the pass targeting these aggressive species. Live shrimp will work too but the mackerel prefer the greenbacks and the snapper have been quicker to eat the greenbacks as well.
Near shore – The weather has been a little tough this week so we haven’t been able to fish near shore as much as we would have liked. However, before the weather this past weekend we found plenty of snapper action and a few hogfish around 60-100 foot of water near shore. The lane snapper, vermillion snapper and the occasional mangrove snapper are biting well closer to the 100ft mark and you have a shot at a red grouper or three in that depth too. I prefer the threadfin plug with 40lb test and double 4-5ot hooks when fishing this deeper near shore waters. This gives you the chance at the mangrove snapper and possible red grouper while still working well for plenty of lane snapper and vermillion. If you would rather just target the smaller, good eating snapper like lane snapper or vermillion a live shrimp or piece of cut squid would work with 30lb test and a 4ot hook. We are seeing plenty of mackerel near shore right now. Behind the storm though we have some muddier than normal waters so you want to get out a little ways to that clearer water before trying to find the mackerel. However, that water should clean up nicely quickly since we have such a beautiful weekend and start of the week ahead. Kingfish aren’t in the near shore waters quite yet but I would bet it should only be another 2-3 weeks before we see our first few kingfish of this coming fall run near shore.
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Upcoming up at Hubbard’s Marina
Capt Dylan Hubbard and his wife Emily just had their son, a fifth generation Hubbard, born this past weekend on Sunday afternoon. He was a respectable keeper red grouper sized baby weighing in at 7lbs and 11ounces and was 21 inches overall! Due to this, Capt Dylan is out of the office awhile with limited access to emails and messages. However, if you need something you can always call the office and talk to our wonderful staff or some of the other mangers, or reach out via email to Capt Dylan just keep in mind his response may come a little later than normal due to focusing on the family time in these early days of his newborn child, Jack Wilson Hubbard!
Keep in mind as well, the live show this past weekend was canceled due to his son being born just a few hours before the show was supposed to start. This weekend he plans to have the live show as normal but things could change based on the weather and the state of his son but stay tuned to the facebook event page, your emails from us, or the Hubbard’s Facebook page for updates on the show!
AMBERJACK season is now open for three months and were seeing some big ones! Plus, we still have TONS of other great fish to catch too! Jacks opened August first and they will remain open until end of October, Hopefully! PLUS, we have gag grouper season running until end of December if you want to get out for some big grouper action. The gags bite best in October, November and December but we are seeing some good ones currently too. If you join us in the next three months you have a chance for ANYTHING in the gulf besides the red snapper and triggerfish! Join us for a 12 hour extreme, 39 hour, or long range private charter for the amberjack and gag grouper fishing! Call us at (727)393-1947 or book online at -> https://HubbardsMarina.com
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
Captain Jack’s dolphin corner
We have had some very active, playful and acrobatic groups of dolphins in our local waters this past week making our dolphin cruise guests very happy during their relaxing tour. The weather finally calming down and the wind shift or the extra fresh water from the rainy conditions last week or some other shift has really got our local dolphin population very active and playful this past week. Great time to get out on the water and enjoy an awesome dolphin show!
We have also been spotting some juvenile and even adult sea turtles cruising the back bay waters this week. The coolest spotting this past week was a large loggerhead sea turtle that popped up right between the boat and the mangrove shore line and cruised through some shallow waters right along the boat before making a beeline for the pass area most likely to head back offshore.
Along with the dolphins and sea turtles this week we have been spotting lots of the manatees around the area cruising the back bay waters. Most of the manatees we are spotting are moving in some decent sized herds around 4-8 manatees making it really easy to spot these unique creatures and cruise along near them watching the show! It is especially cool when we are able to find these animals cruising the shallower waters along the grass flats or shorelines to watching them much easier compared to when we find them in deeper waters. They can hold their breath easily for 6-10 minutes so in deeper waters if they are cruising it’s very difficult to spot them and follow them while in the shallower waters it makes it super simple to spot them and follow them!
We have had some very picture perfect sunsets as of late with some gorgeous views as the cloudy weather provides a killer back drop for our beautiful sunset hour. With the sun light reflecting off the clouds and bouncing around the area making some outstanding colorful views for the lucky visitors and locals who join us for our daily sunset cruise that offers FREE beer and wine every night around 7pm.
Plenty of the Juvenile sea birds or teenagers around the bird nesting islands right now that have left the nests but are not quite adults yet. These birds are funny to spot around the island still very awkwardly learning how to hang on the island, learning to fly and fish. While still pretty dependent on their parents they can be found around the nesting island with ease and are easy to spot as their feathers and size are a giveaway as the big blue dolphin cruise boat tours the island.
Call us today to book your dolphin tour at (727)393-1947 and get more information on this trip at our website here -> https://www.hubbardsmarina.com/dolphin-watching-cruises/
Tampa bay ferry News
The water has been clearing up nicely for us out at the islands on the backside of all that rain we are seeing some nice big tides bringing in some nice clear waters around the islands!
Egmont Key island has had some killer shelling and sharks teeth hunting around the island lately especially behind that weather we had this past weekend.
We have been spotting some of the very unique spotted eagle rays on our trips out and back from the island from Fort De Soto County Park! These unique and beautiful rays really can jump quite high out of the water and they really are exciting to be spotting so consistently on our ride to and from Egmont Key island.
We have been spotting lots of the gopher tortoise and box turtles out at Egmont key as of late and it has been making the day at Egmont key island even more enjoyable for our tampa bay ferry guests while enjoying the island paradise!
The islands are waiting for you and your family to come visit for the day, it’s a great time of year to go out and enjoy the beautiful island paradise! The crowds are dissipating as the kids are going back to school making it even more enjoyable at the islands and making the shells even more bountiful. Plus, the lack of rain as of late has really helped clear up any of the mosquitoes that were around the island paradise!
The Egmont key ferry from Fort De Soto offers 10am and 11am ferry rides to the island daily this time of year, plus on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday we offer a 2pm ferry ride from Fort De Soto out to Egmont Key Island! You get three hours on the island after around a 20-30 minute ride out and back to the island. Plus, we often see dolphins, seabirds and sometimes even sea turtles on the ride out and back thus the ride time can fluctuate a bit depending on what we spot during the cruise out to your island oasis! For more info on the Egmont key ferry, visit this page of the Hubbard’s Marina website – https://www.hubbardsmarina.com/egmont-key-ferry-cruise/
Our Shell key ferry trips are a great way to spend the day and offer more flexible schedules compared to the rigid Egmont key schedule! We offer these trips DAILY from the boat ramp at Fort De Soto County Park and they run at 10am, noon and 2pm and the final return time is 4pm! You have much more flexibility during the shell key trips compared to our Egmont key ferry because you get to choose the time you return to fort de Soto from Shell key! If you’re looking for plenty of time on the island and great shelling opportunities then the shell key ferry trip is your best bet! Check out all the information on this special ferry ride at this link – https://www.hubbardsmarina.com/shell-key-ferry/
Regular’s club
Hey guys, we have our 2020 clubs starting up around the end of November or Early December. If you are interested in signing up or learning more about our loyalty program that will make it more affordable for you to go fishing even more often then make sure to reach out to Capt Dylan at his email below!
If you are an existing regular’s club member make sure to start paying close attention to those special regular’s club email newsletters as the announcements start to come about the renewals for the 2020 clubs!
Captain Dylan Hubbard
Vice president and Co-Owner
(727)393-1947 ext. 306
CaptHubbard@HubbardsMarina.com
FREE Hubbard’s Marina hat with your trip!
Expires September 20th, 2019
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While supplies last
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Preferred partner spotlight
Grilled Shrimp Burger
Pan sautéed in scampi butter and lightly topped with blackening season, thick cut bacon, and Lettuce, tomato, pickle, and red onion. With a side of Dynamite sauce.
Buffalo Shrimp Burger
Fried golden brown and tossed in buffalo hot sauce. Topped with Lettuce, tomato, pickles, and a side of Blue Cheese.
