Red snapper season starts in Tampa Bay as anglers get visit from giant tiger shark

It’s one week into recreational red snapper season, and anglers who have had the ability to run deep have been cashing in with tasty and full fish boxes.

I was fortunate enough to be fishing offshore when the season opened at midnight on June 17.

The trip started with a few delays. I joined Jay Travis, Gil McSwain, Tony Summers and Craig Turlington aboard Travis’ 32-foot Contender.

We planned on leaving Thursday evening and fishing for tuna and other snapper before the midnight opening and switching gears for red snapper and whatever else we could run into. By the end of the trip, the most memorable moment wasn’t even hooked up to a rod and reel.

We were able to head southwest toward a setting sun with calm conditions. Storms moving toward the Gulf around Bradenton almost caught up to us but once we cleared Tampa Bay it was smooth sailing. The first stop in 120 feet of water produced a few keeping yellowtail snapper and red snapper that were released.

The next stop in 160 feet was where things began to get a little crazy. Red snapper were eating everything around the boat.

I dropped big baits on heavy tackle to the bottom with a 30-wide reel and tussled with big grouper almost immediately.

I struggled to gain headway in a back and forth that eventually led to pulled hooks and heartbreak.

Our thinking was big black grouper, probably in the 80- to 100-pound range that were fighting like angry bulls in a China shop. I repeated the process multiple times, eventually getting a fish turned that fought a little different.

After about 10 minutes looking down into the clean blue water, we could see a 10-foot shark, most likely a bull or sandbar, that ate a fillet of bonita.

Off the back of the boat, fish were busting the surface as the sun was setting over the horizon. McSwain was hooked into a fish on a flatlined sardine that peeled off drag. It was a nice tuna that made its way into the fishbox.

A few more surface fish turned into bonita, and with the smell of blood in the water, a giant fin appeared. With a small bit of light on the horizon, the fin circled the boat, eventually coming right up to the engines and bumping them.

It was a giant tiger shark, probably 12 to 14 feet long! The display was amazing as we all watched in awe. I grabbed a spotlight to illuminate it in the dark.

We watched and ate dinner for nearly 30 minutes as it would swim away and back, a true beast of the ocean.

Darkness set in, and the moon was about an hour away from rising. The bite came to a halt as well so we moved locations further south, away from a storm that had built toward our location.

Around 11 p.m., the moon finally began to rise over the storm clouds and the fishing picked up. Mangrove snapper, red grouper and red snapper all began to eat pieces of bonita and shrimp dropped on jig heads.

When midnight hit, our red snapper limit was easily reached as we picked away at other species.

The fishing at night was exceptional, except for the fact we once again needed to dodge storms, this time running back to the north from a storm that was approaching our southerly location as we were nearly west of Venice, 60 miles offshore.

The show of lightning was breathtaking in the dark Gulf of Mexico while slightly terrifying as we could see it approaching on the Sirius radar.

Around 3 a.m., we were on another good bite with big mangrove snapper in 170 feet of water, but the same storm kept creeping up on us. We went back to the north and east as it skirted by us and eventually fell apart around 4:30 in the morning.

One last hope was for a morning tuna bite with the sun rising. I pushed the Contender slowly west to 210 feet of water, getting us set up with about an hour until first light.

A few sharks kept me busy as I attempted to fish, but the extremely strong current denied any easy bottom fishing opportunities.

When the sun rose, so did the winds. We opted to troll, pulling in one more tuna to add to an already stuffed fishbox. With a long ride home, we were no doubt the first back to the dock with a limit of red snapper for opening day.

I’ve noticed less people with good red snapper reports than previous years. The high price of gas and necessity to run deeper could be a reason.

The Gulf has been alive with some awesome fish recently including wahoo, tuna, cobia, billfish and more. If you get the opportunity to head out, take it and enjoy the great fishery we have.