By FRED EVERSON

The water temperature continues to hover around 80 degrees, and that has kept the inshore bite to a minimum the past few days. The good news continues to be the abundance of scaled sardines on the South Shore flats. Captain Chet Jennings said he has never seen anything like the amount of bait in the bay right now. He said he is still catching Spanish mackerel and mangrove snapper on the artificial reef off Bahia Beach, but that the inshore snook bite has been slow. Redfish have also been spotty on this side of the bay.

There has been a lot of activity in the Little Manatee River lately, especially around the mouth. I have seen several tarpon rolling every morning around sunrise, and shortly thereafter big schools of jack crevalles have been ravaging baitfish on the surface.

Last Sunday, I fished with James Johnigean of Shell Point in his new boat, and we hooked a massive jack crevalle upriver in front of the railroad trestle. The fish hit a free-lined live sardine and took the better part of half an hour to reel in. My guess is the fish weighed 15-16 pounds.

I tried fishing the flats south of the river early this week and saw bait everywhere I went, but not so many fish. Water clarity has improved somewhat, but it is still pretty murky for October.

The trout bite has been hot on the other side of the bay. On my last trip to Pinellas Point, we caught a lot of keeper-sized trout on MirrOlures. Most of the fish were around 15 inches, but all of our big trout came from the bay side of the sandbar. We also caught several Spanish mackerel and bluefish.

On a recent calm day, I ran the channel markers with my fishing buddy Keli Emery looking for a cobia or a tripletail, but we only caught a few mangrove snapper. I think that the water temperature has to come down a few more degrees for these fish to show up.

Visit captain Fred Everson’s Web site at Tampabayfishingguide.com for charter info or call (813) 830-8890.