Stinky Birds And Sheeps...head

The other day, Keith and I hit a nice area near Belleair Causeway that had all of the necessary ingredients conducive to holding fish - an incoming tide, deep water near shallow grass beds, a confluence of currents intersecting at a large oyster bed, residential docks, mangrove spoil islands surrounded by oysters bordering deep water, baitfish, and the always popular bridge pilings....the only thing missing was the fish.

The two state bird sanctuaries on either side of the confluence smell really bad, but you'll have that when there are flocks of pelicans and fleets of diving birds. It's obvious that these birds aren't underfed, that's for sure.

Keith did something that I wouldn't have believed had I not been there - caught a sheepshead around the bridge pilings on a soft plastic jerkbait. The sheepshead were hitting my crab flies as they drifted down the pilings, but I couldn't hook up. All I ended up with were ripped up flies and a better tan.

The only reason I believe we couldn't find fish holding there is water temperature. The temp in the Gulf at the moment is 86 degrees F. I think the best time to fish this time of year would be dawn and dusk. That's why I'm going out tomorrow at ugly early 5:30 AM. Will be checking out a new spot in St Joseph Sound.

This is quite a large area of shallow grass flats with large and deep holes, from 1 foot to 10 feet in depth. I'm thinking that fishing the holes at dawn with an incoming tide just might work.

I need a slump buster....