Tampa/St. Pete swimbaiters?

[silentc40]

Hey all.  I am a NorCal swimbait guy, visiting a friend for 5 days in Western Florida.  Not the greatest time of year for fishing the flats/inshore, and was wondering if anyone had any ideas for where to fish.  I will be close to Tarpon Lake, which looks to me like the Delta here in the Bay Area.  I am down for anything, might try to rent a kayak or paddleboard and explore up the river system for snook and Reds.  Maybe grouper on swimbaits?  My buddy is a golf caddy, so I imagine I will be fishing some golf ponds too.

 

Thanks for any info, much appreciated guys. 

 

-Benjamin

[encinoman]

I spent the summer of 18 and last spring in clearwater. There's a lot of public water, but it seemed like there was a decent amount of pressure anywher convenient and public. In largo theres some bigger park lakes like walsingham and taylor (tons of gators though) with some decent fish. Some of my teammates were able to get a boat out on tarpon and said they did pretty good but they weren't throwing big baits. Your best bet is probably the golf course ponds if you have access or dont care about ninja fishing, but tarpon has the potential of kicking out some big fish and I cant imagine they have seen a ton of big baits.

[silentc40]

Every video I see they are dragging brush piles. Haven't caught peacock yet, may have to venture south east to see if I can check one off. And no, I have zero problem ninja fishing.

Thanks for the info!