Parrish has a pretty good day of kayak fishing on Sarasota Bay

Bob Parrish of Plant City gets ready to land a bonnethead shark while fishing on Sarasota Bay.

Bob Parrish of Plant City, Fla., experienced his first kayak fishing trip with me. He'd fished from a kayak on an occasion or two, but never with me.

Parrish landed a 28-inch redfish.

He had quite a day.

The morning began when we found a school of bull redfish on a flat along the west side of Sarasota Bay. We were able to coax a 28-inch red out of the school. The big fish blasted a topwater plug on the second twitch.

We found the school a second time, but a long cast against a stiff east breeze prevented us from reaching the fish.

We then moved out to deep grass and had a blast, catching spotted seatrout to 23 inches, bluefish to 5 pounds, flounder, mangrove snapper, jack crevalle, ladyfish and bonnethead shark. We caught a few other species that gave us 13 different types of fish on the day.

Big blues are busting lures around Sarasota Bay.

Most of the fish came on D.O.A. CAL Jigs with gold or copper crush paddle tails. We also caught fish on MirrOlure MirrOdines.

Our modus operandi was to anchor (the wind was too much to drift) and fish an area until the action slowed. We'd then only move 20 or 30 feet and re-anchor.

The action was consistent.

Parrish came within a hooked snook of a Sarasota Bay Slam (redfish, seatrout and snook). But he couldn't quite get the hook set after the fish blasted his topwater plug.

Fishing in Sarasota Bay is getting better by the day. I'm looking forward to October and November, which traditionally are great months in the bay.

To book a trip, please call me (Steve Gibson) at 941284-3406 or email me at steve@kayakfishingsarasota.com

Visit my website: www.kayakfishingsarasota.com.