Extra daylight lines up with best season for Gulf fishing, Bradenton-area angler says

When the clocks sprang forward last weekend, it provided a seasonal opportunity for anglers.

The extra hour of daylight at the end of the day now coincides with the usual best time to fish, the few hours before the sun dips west into the horizon.

For most 9-to-5ers, the extra hour means more daylight fishing time if they decide to head out after a final punching of the clock for the day. Or perhaps leaving work and doing something more drastic to get on the water.

The first few days of the time change this year were blown out following a strong cold front. I kept in touch with a couple of anglers who wanted to venture offshore and Wednesday looked like light winds but leftover seas from the blow.

It was a last-minute trip, and both happened to get sick from work at the right moment to venture offshore. We waited until the afternoon time frame to allow the seas to calm and to clear any other schedules beyond work. Sometimes a mental sick day is needed.

We left just after noon with some shrimp in the livewell to start. A stop at the Skyway fishing pier and we added a mix of sardines and pinfish to our future offerings. We had our eyes set on bigger ledges in 75 to 80 feet, which tend to hold more fish after big blows.

Water temperatures were still cold and never reached 70 degrees all day. The first spot was slow and lacking a good bite. The second was the same, apart from a few mangrove snapper, and what was most likely a shark that provided some drag screaming before breaking off.

The next spot, a ledge discovered on a previous trip as home to big mangrove snapper, started better with a few nice lane snapper. I switched to a 3/8-ounce jig head and whitebait that produced a nice mangrove snapper on the first drop. After the next two repeated the same result, I gave the rod to rig another.

For the next hour and a half or so, we kept repeating the process. The key was getting your bait to hover about 5 feet off the bottom to get the mangroves. Lower was grouper and the occasional grunt or lane snapper.

This was aided by colorful fishing line known as “Cheater Line” that changes colors every 10 meters, letting us know where in the column our bait was. One rod that was fishing with standard single-color braided line produced no mangrove snapper despite being rigged the same way.

We left that spot halfway to our limit when the tide slackened and the bite slowed. ‘Twas the night before the full moon. It peaked over the eastern horizon around 6:30 p.m. and we watched the sun lowering to the western horizon on our way to another nearby ledge.

All signs were good for catching fish. Over the next 45 minutes, the mangrove snapper bite picked up as the current began to move the water as well. We would finish off the three-person limit with a good mix of lane snapper and porgies and headed east before darkness fully set in.

March, while usually windy, provides windows of excellent offshore fishing. Sometimes you have to wait until the last minute to make sure the weather will allow the opportunity to get out.

With warm days ahead, we are close to having a full-blown kingfish run and tuna approaching shallower wrecks and reefs.

It’s a good opportunity to take a sick day, just don’t show up to work too tan as it may raise some questions.