‘Sometimes those cold days are the best.’ Where a Tampa Bay fishing guide goes in November

Captain Ryan Amaturo grew up fishing from north Tampa down to St. Petersburg and across Tampa Bay to the southern shore around Port Manatee.

He has covered as much of its shallow water as any captain around. As a full-time guide now well into his career, Amaturo specializes in flats species like redfish, snook and trout, but knows some days those species aren’t on the menu.

When red tide bloomed in July, his home waters were right in the crosshairs.

“Tampa Bay is my office and it breaks my heart what we are going through!” he posted on social media. “We are all staying positive and moving areas to continue to put all our clients on fish! Please pray for Tampa Bay.”

Almost five months later, the ground zero red tide areas are now teeming with life. I joined Amaturo this past Thursday to see how the bay is doing, and what he will be fishing for with cold weather on the horizon on a day that left the big inshore species doing more hiding than seeking.

In the early morning a cool northeast breeze made the bay choppy on his home southern waters of Tampa Bay.

Amaturo prefers fishing flats around Cockroach Bay down to Joe’s Island, where areas of unspoiled shorelines with many creeks to hide out provide great opportunities even on windier days. We started fishing deep docks when he pulled out a bag of small fiddler crabs.

On the first cast he showed what the crabs were for.

“That’s a sheep,” he said, pulling in a small sheepshead only seconds after the bait hit the water.

With 20-pound leader and a small hook, he positioned his boat right next to the dock and the sheepshead wasted no time in eating it. After playing with a few other fish, we moved around as the tide began to pour in from it’s extremely low state.

The next area we fished was a series of oyster bars surrounded by deep holes. A legal-sized trout was the first to eat a bait, as other fish seemed reluctant to join in. A slight move to a nearby shoreline and the snook turned on along with a redfish.

When we had our fill of line siders we checked back on a few more deepwater docks. He wanted to target mangrove snapper and more sheepshead, species he explained can be good even in the winter months.

“We’re able to get out of the wind, and sometimes those cold days are the best for sheepshead,” he said. “I told the guy at the bait shop to give me every crab you’ve got, as that’s their preference. He didn’t have many today, so I have shrimp too.”

On one of those shrimp, Chuck Brocker pulled out a big 18-inch sheepshead, while everyone else joined in with snapper also fishing the deepwater docks with shrimp.

When we had our fill and some meat in the box Amaturo checked a few other spots he’ll be fishing come winter, but the fish weren’t quite there yet.

With strong fronts now pushing further south across Florida there will be periods of cold weather.

Fishing these days can be tough, but a game plan ready to change can still be productive for those willing to adapt.