I had the pleasure of joining Capt. Scott Moore and fishing legend Capt. Bobby Buswell on a Homosassa fishing trip to celebrate Moore’s birthday. We were hosted by Jim Warren and his son Cody and we fished with Capt. William Toney.
Capt. Toney’s first stop took us to the Bombing Range area in between Homosassa and Crystal River. We drifted in 6-8’ of water casting root beer colored “Lil John’s on a 1/8 ounce jig head and caught many nice keeper trout and big black sea bass.
Our next stop took us to some nearby rock piles where we removed the soft plastic tails from the jig head and replaced them with live shrimp. When we cast to the rocks it was nonstop action with mangrove snapper, white grunts, sea bass and three doormat flounder.
The birthday fishing trip ended with Toney cooking a delicious shore lunch for us at the Warren’s beautiful Homosassa home.
Tarpon fishing has been very consistent in Tampa Bay. Capt. Billy Miller has been having great catch and release tarpon action along the Gulf beaches. Other good spots have been the Skyway Bridge and Egmont Key. Top baits are live threadfins and silver dollar crabs.
Capt. Mac Gregory reports great speckled trout action in Anna Maria Sound. Gregory has been getting easy trout limits in the morning and then going tarpon fishing in the afternoon.
Fly fishing for giant tarpon in the Bayport area has been real good. Capt. Jim Long has been catching at least one fish per day using a purple bunny fly.