All I caught was a few pinfish for bait, a cowfish (now that's an odd one!), and a stingray. Next time I will definately shuck out the $ and get on a boat for a day. It was windy and chilly (by their standards anyway) for a few days but I did get to the Ft. Desoto pier (the wooden one) and the south skyway pier and the Gandy Bridge. I took a big baitrunner reel and a 10' Wonderod and a med spinning outfit. They use either a pier net or a great big treble on a rope to get fish up...the gaff (treble) isn't a c+r method of course. It was recommended to me to bring 2 setups, a med-heavy spinner w/12-15# and something with 20 or so with a flurocarbon leader for pier fishing because they like to get around the pilings to try to break you off. I think you should do better than I did because they were saying that the mackrel come around in March ........ If you can get the use of a canoe or kayak you'll be miles ahead in terms of being able to find fish in some of these mangrove swamps that rim Tampa Bay. Pay attention to tides and currents, when my rod tube blew off the Desoto pier it went 1/2 mile in about 5 minutes!
