Brian Lemelin with Optimus Fishing Charters
Brian is a fishing enthusiast who enjoys sharing his excitement for Florida fishing with all who come to visit.
Wintertime here in Florida sees the cold fronts arriving from the 21st of December and lasting until the 20th of March. Because of lower temperatures, every day, the folks at Optimus Fishing Charters and I start off dressing in multiple layers, with Gore-Tex and Thinsulate, so we are kept dry and warm. During a good, cool day, perhaps we’ll shed a couple of layers and readjust as it gets cooler again in the late afternoon.
Tampa Bay waters in the winter have fallen into the 60s, making the ideal 70s temperature unavailable until spring comes. A major factor in getting out into the water during this time has been the wind. This is because white bait has moved into deeper water, away from the flats. You can find bait being held at numerous towers along the channel. Netting this bait requires you to make sure there’s tide movement so you know the bait is easily caught up in the water column. I like chumming and using tropical fish food to entice them up from the bottom.
Power Plant Winter Fishing
As a result of all of these seasonal changes, our recent charters have been held at the TECO Big Bend Power Station, located across the bay. I like this area because we found that numerous species of targeted fish are magnetized by the warm water discharge the power plant produces. We’ve seen excellent bites of cobia, crevalle jack, as well as bonnethead sharks, and bull sharks. I expect some blacktip sharks to be moving in soon as well. There’s also the bonus of seeing some dolphins, manatees, and stingrays swimming around; they give you quite the show. If it’s not too crowded with other boats, fishing at the power plant can be a ton of fun.
How We Find and Hook Fish
During this cool season in our area, we are mostly sight fishing for cobia. I look for the brown bombers’ silhouettes by trolling the flats. We like to set up several casting options to increase the chances of cobia biting. How I usually like to go about it is; that one rod will be set up with live bait (shrimp or white bait), one will have a plastic eel, and one will have a topwater plug. Accurate casting is critical. I find that if you land the bait 6 to 12 inches in front of the fish, they are more likely to bite. Double hookups are not unusual because cobia sometimes travel in pairs. If this happens, keep the hooked cobia in the water and allow the second one to catch up and join in the action.
In our locale, cobia have to be 33 inches at the fork of the tail to keep. So if you’re doing some catch and release fishing, handle them with care. If you happen to spot some stingrays and manatees, you might find a couple of fish tagging along with them. I remember fighting a 40-pound cobia with a light tackle for 30 minutes. I’ve fished around the world, and to this day, that is still the most violent shake of the head by a fish I’ve ever experienced. At the time, I was with Captain Gary Allen, who was also hooked up and fighting a similar-sized cobia.
When we are talking about a pound for pound and inch for inch, crevalle jack may be the hardest fighting fish in the bay. We chased this jack once with a 4000-size reel for 45 minutes before landing and releasing it. We caught it using a jig head with a large shrimp pierced through its horn. It was the biggest catch of jack I’ve seen from the bay, at 32 inches. Along Apollo Beach, you can find several schools of fish in large sizes. I recommend casting at the edge of the school with any artificial lure and doing a drag-ripping action.
In flats and 6 inches out to the water, you can locate bonnethead sharks. To target them, we like using shrimp hooked through the horn, attached to a jig head with a float about 3-4 inches above the jig. If you want to find bull sharks, we have to head to deeper water cuts. We can use any cut bait to hook them. Juvenile blacktip sharks can be spotted in 5 inches of water. The same setup that we use for bonnethead sharks is effective, but we use a light steel leader on the blacktip sharks, as well as bull sharks. We also like using pieces of squid to entice them.
Around and some distance away from the power plant area, we’ve seen trout showing up in great numbers. Greenbacks and shrimp work really well as bait or lure. If you want to go artificial, plastic swimbaits work just as well in producing plenty of trout.
Come Winter Fishing With Us
With my 27 years of fishing experience in Tampa Bay, you can worry less about whether we are able to reel in a couple of fish, even in the winter. These couple of recent charter experiences have made me realize that fishing in the bay can be done in whichever season. We just have to know where to to fish. In our case, we, fortunately, found an active winter fishing hole at the TECO Big Bend Power Station. I’ll make sure that your time spent out in the bay and gulf waters can be as productive as it can be.
Check out the Optimus Fishing Charters’ website and Facebook page for more information. Exploring the shore of Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico is our specialty. You can also rent out jet skis, kayaks, and paddleboards with South Shore Watersports, which I also own and operate. We also provide jet ski tours, cruises, tubing, and bike rentals.
If you’re looking for a great day on the water, give me, Captain Brian Lemelin a call, and I would be happy to show you how much fun our fishery can be. Hope to see you on the water. Tight lines!
