Bayport/Ozello report 5Jan2014

[rsmckain83]

So the kids and I hit up Bayport in the morning. The tide was suppose to be coming in but it kept going out till after 10am. I tried float and bottom fishing with shrimp and fiddler crabs with no bites at all. The very low tide did help us gather up a lot of bait crabs under all the rocks.

We headed to Ozello and the tide was still going out there. With the tide and East wind I was fishing the West side of the road, never really had a whole lot of luck on that side. It is much shallower and I always get caught on something. The tide switched around 14:00 and when we moved to the East side of the road small mangrove snappers (roughly 7 inch) were hitting shrimp real good till we were out. I cast netted near the restaurant beach for some silver dollars and what ever else bait I could get. Some medium size mangrove snappers (10-11 inch) began hitting those good too. At Ozello I like to use a couple rigs of mine; pop bobber, 2-3 ft 20 lb leader, 1/0 circle hook, then just let the current take it out. We got three keeper trout this same way on pin fish a few weeks ago there, but yesterday the snappers took over the area.

I'm still learning a lot about fishing in the pasco/hernando/cirtus areas so any advice is appreciated.

[phillybass]

Thanks for the report.