Anna Maria Island Fishing Report – June 25, 2025
Be stealthy for snook, trout success
Despite water temperatures in the high 80s and frequent thunderstorms releasing high volumes of rainfall, the waters of southern Tampa Bay and the entrance to the Manatee River are quite clear yielding excellent action on spotted seatrout and catch-and-release snook.
Your best chances to take advantage of these clear water scenarios is to fish the big incoming tides during the morning hours. Clean, clear water from the Gulf of Mexico flows into the backcountry on the big tides, triggering trout and snook to feed as opportunities to grab an easy meal present themselves.
Remember in these clear waters, you’ll want to employ stealth.
This can easily be achieved by scaling down your leader size and hook size. Try 20-pound fluorocarbon with a No. 1 one hook for best results.
For trout fishing, this setup is perfect. If you’re snook fishing, make sure to keep an eye on that section of leader right above the hook. This can get frayed easily from the snook’s mouth. You’ll want to check your leader after every catch, and if it’s frayed, then snip it and retie your hook.
You may think this is tedious, but using the lighter leader will yield more hookups, especially in the crystal-clear water.
If you’re in a school of large snook, you may opt to bump the leader to 30-pound and maybe use a 1/0 hook just for added insurance. Everyone who targets linesiders knows that the large fish don’t bite often and if they do, you don’t want to lose one because your leader was too light. But you’re if you’re on the average 20- to 26-inch fish, that 20-pound leader should work just fine.
Don’t forget to handle snook gently as catching them in such warm water can be stressful to them. Try to revive the fish boatside as long as you can until they’re ready to swim away. The same applies with trout. In fact, trout are more delicate than the snook so handle with care.
On my Just Reel charters, the trout bite is staying strong for another week.
Fishing depths of 4-10 feet of water with lush grass on the bottom yields limit of spotted seatrout on most morning incoming tides.
I will say that after the full moon I’m seeing larger colonies of smaller trout 13-14 inches than I’m seeing large trout in the 20-plus inch range. Determined anglers are putting their limit together in short order.
Mixed in with the trout are mackerel and ladyfish as well as a few early season mangrove snapper.
After trout fishing, I’m going after catch-and-release snook. Fishing the beaches and passes produces decent number of fish. Fishing the flats around mangroves produces a bite, although hot water temps are causing the snook bite to be slightly more sporadic than along the Gulf beaches.
