Booking a Tampa Bay fishing charter can greatly increase your chances of catching a variety of inshore species, including the much sought after redfish. This large specimen, and three more just like him, were encountered while fishing a promising dock structure adjacent to Clearwater Beach. Customers often ask," With so many docks to fish, how does someone know which ones will actually hold redfish." The answer is that "You have to fish all the "good looking" docks to find out the few that actually hold the fish". Like so many other things in life, knowledge is gained simply through hard work and persistence. There are no shortcuts. Guides who provide customers with successful Tampa Bay fishing charters do so because they have spent countless hours on the water without customers looking for and finding the fish.

Dock fishing for redfish can be frustrating, especially for those whose casting accuracy has something to be desired. If a bait isn't placed close enough to or under the dock, the redfish may never bite. If your presentation is thrown too close to the dock or on it, the dock is snagged and the angler spends the next five minutes tying on all new terminal tackle. Additional challenges are encountered fighting dock redfish as well. The angler must be completely prepared for the strike as a redfish of this size, if given the chance to turn back under the structure with the angler's bait, will quickly find an oyster covered pole and the fight will be over.

Tampa Bay fishing charter captains will typically use one of the newer braided lines when fishing docks as this line has good abrasion resistance and little stretch. Once a cast is made, the angler needs to take all the slack out of the line, hold the rod low and point straight at the bait to absolutely eliminate any extra slack. As soon as there is any indication of a strike, strong pressure is immediately applied in an attempt to wrestle the fish away from the structure. If the fish gets it's head turned and is heading back towards trouble, some anglers will actually "thumb the spool", which completely overrides the drag system of the reel. Although this may sound risky, if the fish isn't stopped it will break off anyway. This "nothing to loose" tactic will occasionally thwart a big fish's efforts to return to the safety of its cover. On this Tampa Bay fishing charter, many docks were fished but only two produced redfish...pretty typical for a summer day fishing docks. Every fish on this dock was over 30 inches however, and that, by itself, made for a great day!