Go Fish for 1/1/12 by Capt. Bill Miller

   Historically kingfish should have left our area on their southern migration by now. On rare occasion through the years a few kingfish have been caught around Christmas. It appears our warm winter has made this one of those years.

 Before the cold front Capt. Jesse Mayer reports that kingfish were thick off Johns Pass. Mayer and party caught over 40 kingfish on a half day trip along with bonitos, grouper and hogfish. Live bait was the key for Mayer.

   Capt. Craig Lahr had been catching monster kings off Clearwater Pass at the Clearwater hard bottom slow trolling live shad. One of Lahr’s kingfish weighed 53 pounds and two others were in the 40’s and a few were in the 30 pound range.

   The Peaks, south of the Whistler buoy, was the hot king spot for Jim Turner and friends. Turner says they caught their limits quickly and released 30 or 40 more kings in a mornings fishing using live white bait.

   This cold snap may have moved the kings some but when the weather warms up don’t be surprised to find them in some of the usual places

   The Graziano family was fishing the Times Square area with Capt. Billy Miller and had great action with catch and release grouper, hog snapper, sheepshead, triggerfish, mangrove snapper and white grunts .Miller has been using knocker rigs and live shrimp to catch most of his fish.

   Gag grouper is closed in both state and federal waters and will not open until late 2012.

  Capt. Richard Seward and I had an enjoyable day last week on a north Tampa lake catching speckled perch and blue gills with a few bass mixed in. We used our electric motor to slow troll beetle spins around brush piles for the best action. A few of the bass were too big to land.

   Speckled trout is open all year long starting January 1, 2012.