Tripletail can be found if you enjoy the hunt

Captain Brett Norris of Rock Bottom Charters guides anglers up to 250 days a year. With clients that include professional athletes and celebrities varying from fishing enthusiasts to first-time anglers, he's developed fish catching strategies everyone can enjoy.

On days he's not chartering, there's a good chance Norris is fun fishing or angling in a tournament. When he discovers something new for catching fish, it's probably worth taking note since it's working so well.

I met Capt. Norris Monday morning at O'Neill's Marina in South St. Petersburg. We were joined by Rob Chapman IV of Outdoors360, Capt. Jimmy Nelson of Extreme Fishing Adventures and Luiza Barros of Fishing with Luiza. The winds were forecast strong from the east early, with a small window of calmer weather in the afternoon. If it calmed, we wanted to try Norris' hottest discovery -- tripletail fishing.

We didn't go far for our first stop, a flat edge near the intercoastal channel. Norris said the snook were here, but getting them to feed could be tough with the water temperature drop following a cold front and high pressure overhead. Norris grabbed a whitebait, threw it out past the drop off and said "Sometimes they like it moving to eat it," he quickly reeled it over the spot, stopped, and lured a nice fish on. Next thing we know he's lifting a 32-inch snook in the boat after making it look easy.

After round one of snook, we made a few stops on shallow water wrecks to try for grouper. These spots were as shallow as 5-feet and hold big fish, two of which really hurt Rob Chapman's and Barros' feelings.

I decided to get in on the action, throwing a pinfish over the structure. Like shallow water grouper tend to do, one hit with a vengeance, trying to rip the rod out of my hands. I walked up to the front of the boat, determined to get the grouper away from the structure. It worked, and a 26-inch gag from shallow water found its way into the cooler.

After playing around with more snook, the wind finally calmed. It was time to see what tripletail fishing was all about. Norris ran into Tampa Bay where we stopped at a few secret pieces of structure.

"It's a lot like snapper fishing," he said. "Let the bait slowly fall and if they're home, they'll eat it." Baits can vary from shrimp to small whitebait or half a whitebait.

He chucked a few dead baits from the well for chum and hungry tripletail were home immediately. On the first stop we landed 5 -- on the second a few more, and then a third stop produced fish as well.

"The key is to not wait around for them. Try various structures, markers, cans, pilings, crab traps and the like. If they are home, you'll know it," Norris explained.

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 11:40 PM with the headline "Tripletail can be found if you enjoy the hunt ."