Year-Round Redfish Roundup in Lower Boca Ciega Bay

We had just wrapped up a productive morning of pompano jigging on the south side of Pass-A-Grille, when Capt. Billy Miller said he wanted to visit some old friends on the way back to the dock. Given the area and Miller’s time in the guiding business, the thought was completely plausible.

Maybe he wanted to drop off a couple fish to someone he knew. Nope; Miller wanted to boat a few more fish—bigger ones with different paint jobs and a whole lot more horsepower.

As the seasoned Tampa Bay captain demonstrated, the lower end of Boca Ciega Bay holds a bounty of inshore opportunity; among the options—big redfish. Nestled between well-known tourist attractors—St. Pete Beach and Fort Desoto—this area over-watched by the famous Don CeSar Resort holds an appealing mix of inshore features that keep redfish and redfish anglers coming back for more.

A LOT TO OFFER

Describing the waters tucked between the Pinellas County mainland and the barrier islands, roughly from Madeira Beach south to Pass-A-Grille, Miller said he focuses mostly on the lower end, from Boca Ciega Bay Aquatic Preserve to Tierra Verde. In his view, the entire waterway creates a bounty of redfish-friendly habitat.

“There’s all sorts of little bayous and creeks in there, you have three passes—Johns Pass, Blind Pass, and Pass-A-Grille Pass—and you have a direct entrance to Tampa Bay to the east,” Miller said. “In between that, you have Clam Bayou in Gulfport, Bear Creek in Pasadena, then you have Long Bayou and Cross Bayou in Bay Pines.

“So you have a lot of freshwater estuary habitat and on top of that, you have a lot of deepwater canals. When there’s cold water, there are safe places for the redfish to hide. A lot of the fish they eat use those canals in winter, so the redfish go up in there too.”

Boca Ciega Bay offers plenty of the structure reds favor. Here, you’ll find mangroves, docks, sand bars, small islets, and grass flats—some sprawling pastures, others isolated patches in some of those canals and backwaters.

A high spot near a canal entrance (I was advised not to say which one) followed our pompano session with a spirited round of redfish action. Good example, Miller said, of this area’s perennial appeal.

“Everything is right there; so I think a lot of those fish in Boca Ciega Bay live there year-round,” Miller said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of summer or the dead of winter, there is habitat for them that matches each transition point of the year.”

Here are some of the annual expectations.

SEASONALITY

Capt. Chris Wiggins fishes from Pass-A-Grille up as far as the Corey Causeway, which links South Pasadena to St. Pete Beach. He agrees this area offers everything a redfish needs.

“I think the docks in that area have a lot of oysters and the estuaries have a lot of food inside the Intracoastal Waterway, that’s right inside from the Gulf,” Wiggins said. “Also, when the redfish come down the bay (late-summer to fall) to head offshore, you have all those large, breeder redfish that come into Boca Ciega Bay.

“September-October is my favorite time because you get all those breeder reds all together and they chew really well before they go offshore. The upper slot reds will mix with big ones when they’re all together and near the Gulf.”

During these late season gatherings, Wiggins expects the redfish to run with the mullet. Targeting deeper troughs adjacent to a grass flat during an outgoing tide, he’ll chum the spot to get ’em going and then hit the area with a couple different presentations.

“I’ll throw a whitebait on a cork, but I catch a lot of them by cutting off a bait’s tail and throwing it in the potholes with the mullet,” Wiggins said. “Some of the redfish are lazier and they eat deeper down. They get smart, just like big snook. And with the bait on the bottom, they don’t see the leader either.”

A highly productive area, lower Boca Ciega Bay holds plenty more redfish opportunities.

Summer

Need a break from tarpon fishing or the nearshore reefs? The Boca Ciega reds are almost always ready to stretch your string. Wiggins knows fish will spend a lot of their time on or near flats with potholes, but summer’s big tides allow the fish to push deep under the overhanging mangroves and into the food-laden roots encrusted with barnacles and oysters. As Wiggins points out, these hideaways allow reds to evade dolphins. (Same with deeper docks.)

Shrimp, juvenile crabs, snails and the usual cast of finfish forage keep the fish facing inward, so don’t be offended if baits and lures presented a foot or two from the trees go unnoticed.

Bass anglers will recognize this opportunity to flip or pitch jigs or Texas-rigged craws and creature baits into flooded mangrove pockets. Imitating a crab is a good way to find out just how hard a redfish or a big black drum bites something that bites back.

Worth noting, Boca Ciega is Spanish for “Blind Mouth,” (a reference to Blind Pass) but one look at this place and there’s no mistaking the profound redfish potential.

Fall

Along with the open-water autumn gatherings, Miller also finds reds feeding heavily around the mouths of creeks and canals.

“You have a lot of fish that are 18-24 inches and then all of a sudden, you’ll catch a fish in the high-30s to 40 inches,” Miller said. “You have such great access to the Gulf that those fish from the (outside waters) will come in there.”

Miller knows live whitebait and pilchards will tempt creek and canal reds, but the seagulls and terns have gotten so dialed in on the live bait deal that it’s often more trouble than it’s worth. That’s especially true when low tides give birds easier targets.

“A lot of times, just fishing the baits dead on the bottom will really help, especially if the redfish are on the edges,” Miller said. “If you throw a live bait right up to the edge in shallow water, he will naturally swim downhill into that deeper water, away from where the redfish are.

“Whereas, if you cut him in half and throw him up on the edge, he’s gonna lay right there where those fish are. A nice chunk of fresh bait can’t swim out of the strike zone.”

With lighter baits like the whitebait, Miller typically adds a small pinch weight to help his clients with casting distance. Cut ladyfish or mullet chunks are heavy enough to fish unweighted.

Natural bait’s hard to beat, but Miller also catches a lot of reds by tracing those edges with light jigs and MirrOlure Little John tails or the MirrOlure MirrOdine twitchbait. Once the cold months pass, spring basically reverses the fall movement and the reds that overwintered in canals and bayous return to the mouths for similar feeding.

Winter

During a time of year that can throw some brutal conditions into the Bay Area, Miller knows the value of countless wind breaks. “I use Boca Ciega Bay in the dead of winter because it’s so protected to the fishermen,” he said. “It can blow out of any direction and there’s enough canals and creeks in there that you can always be protected. In order to catch ‘em, you gotta be able to fish ‘em.”

Miller will leverage winter’s extreme low tides to target reds relating to deeper dock lines adjacent to grass flats that may be bone dry when the water falls out. Fish that were feeding in the grass make an easy transition to the hard cover.

The jig and shrimp combo is always a good dock option, as is a lightly weighted cut bait. Miller said he’ll often find black drum hanging with their crimson cousins, so double drumming’s always a possibility.

“I’ll pinch the tail off the shrimp to release more scent, then I’ll thread it onto a jig head so the hook comes out the belly,” Miller said. “The shrimp looks like he’s laying there on the bottom and when you lightly twitch it some, it looks just like a shrimp jumping away.”

As one of the area’s top sheepshead anglers, Wiggins spends a lot of winter days around docks. In his experience, docks that excel for convict fish also appeal to reds.

“The ideal redfish dock is old with lots of barnacle, and located near mangroves,” Wiggins said. “If you have that, it has lots of life. Also, the docks that mullet like, those are the same docks that redfish like.

“I catch redfish up to 38 inches on fiddler crabs when I’m sheepshead fishing. I’ve caught some weird stuff on fiddlers; like tarpon up to 40 pounds, 30-inch snook, permit, and pompano. Mangrove snapper like them.”

In addition to the fiddlers, Wiggins also catches his winter reds on cut pinfish, cut ladyfish, and shrimp threaded onto a bare hook (tail removed for maximum scent).

PATIENCE PAYS

They’re nothing like the high-strung Islamorada bonefish, but even the relatively cooperative redfish has its limits. Populated waters are pressured waters and redfish living anywhere within the Tampa Bay region swim with ever-decreasing tolerance. Capt. Billy Miller has seen his Boca Ciega Bay redfish change over the years, prompting his tactical evolution.

“There are so many people fishing for them, you just have to go slow,” Miller said. “You don’t have to catch them on the first set up. I like to fish my way in. I have an idea where they’re going to be, but I might say, ‘Let’s try right here on our way in.’ There was a time bumping proved to be an effective strategy. Run a pocket or shoreline to displace a school, watch where they settle, and then back off and fish them.”

That time is no more.

“Today’s redfish don’t bump and stop,” Miller said. “If you bump them, they keep going.”

To this point, Miller offers sage advice born of trial and error.

“I’m guilty of doing this: I’ll come in and if I don’t get them on the first spot, I don’t get them on the second spot, I know better than to this, but I try to skip the third spot and go to the fourth — and I bump them,” he said. “With all the urban development, these fish don’t have a chance to relax like they used to. There’s always somebody (or dolphins) out there, so go slow.”

Miller suggests fishing each spot for at least 5 minutes and if no-go, slide up to where your baits were sitting and fish beyond that point. Taming impatience and proceeding strategically, hastens success more than, well, haste.

“If you don’t catch one, don’t leave or skip over spots,” Miller said. “What you’ll find is with the redfish, the slower and quieter you come in, the more fish you’ll catch.

“You could pull up there with your motor and go right to the spot and you might catch 5 or 10. But if you drift in or push pole in, or trolling motor in, that 5 of 10 might turn into 15 or 20.”

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• This article was featured in the July 2024 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe.

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