The few places anglers will find fish in Citrus County all have one thing in common, that is some source of warm water. This leaves a few natural places like the springs and one manmade source like the Progress Energy power plant out flow. Even with the warm up predicted this week, its going to take some time for fish to return to their traditional winter areas. It remain to see how bad the fish kill from the cold temperatures affected certain species, reports Capt. William Toney of Homosassa Inshore Fishing Charters (352-621-9284). homosassainshorefishing.com
“The good news is there are plenty of fish to be caught in the warm spots. Some of the fish being caught in the springs this past week were multiple limits of speckled trout, redfish, snook, mangrove snapper, ladyfish and jack crevalle. Live shrimp works well on all of these fish. but because of the extreme Gulf water temperatures, there have been no shrimp at the area bait shops. This should not deter anglers though, as a 1/4 oz. D.O.A. Shrimp in glow color will work just as good and last a lot longer. Fish this lure just as slow as you would a live shrimp near the bottom. Lift your rod tip slowly and let the bait fall back to the bottom. The solid “thump” of a hit will be a trout, but if you have a repeated tapping type of hit its more than likely going to be a ladyfish,” Toney said
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