The Anna Maria Island Sun Newspaper

Vol. 15 No. 34 - June 24, 2015

reel time

Fishing with Captain Aaron Lowman

Reel time

rusty chinnis | submitted

This flounder took a drifted
jig on a reef off Anna Maria Island.

 

 

The first time I met Captain Aaron Lowman, he was a youngster and working at his dad Bill’s store, Island Discount Tackle in Holmes Beach. Fast forward more years than I want to remember, and Lowman is a captain working out of Keyes Marina. Recently I heard that he had caught a sailfish off Anna Maria and thought, since it’s a bit of a rare catch, that it should be published in the Sun. When I contacted Lowman, he confirmed that he was fishing a wreck about 30 miles offshore for kingfish when a sailfish ate a free lined live shiner. He quickly photographed, revived and released it alive. He sent me the picture, which was published in the Sun, and we made a plan to get out on the water together.

We finally agreed to meet on Thursday June 18, at Keyes Marina, where he keeps his boat. I arrived about five minutes before our meeting time of 6:30, thinking that Lowman wasn’t around. No sooner had that thought crossed my mind when I saw him idling to the dock right on time with a baitwell full of shiners.

Besides the pilchards, he also had a selection of pass crabs just in case they were needed. I am always attentive to how a captain rigs and maintains his boat and tackle and was impressed with what I saw. As mentioned, there was an ample supply of bait and a quiver of well-maintained spinning rods fully loaded with line, all conveniently stowed in racks above the T-top of his 24-foot Carolina skiff. The boat, a new addition, provided ample room for anglers and crew and was powered by a smooth and quiet Suzuki 115 four-stroke outboard.

Lowman knew I was a fly fisher and had a plan to try and put me in front of two of the fly angler’s favorite species, tarpon and permit. Unfortunately, the tarpon, which had been thick weeks prior, had all but disappeared from the beach, having gone offshore to spawn.

We spent the first part of the day hunting the north end of Anna Maria and the south end of Longboat, and while we did find a few scattered schools, they would show once and then disappear for a long period of time. I got a couple of decent shots thanks to Lowman’s knack for guessing where the tarpon would track, but it soon became apparent that this wasn’t a productive use of our time.

As a fall back, Lowman had positioned us near a small artificial reef off Longboat, where we fished with jigs and pilchards for flounder. The flounder weren’t cooperating, but we did encounter action with Spanish mackerel. While I’m sure we could have stayed there and chummed up a nice catch of Spanish, we decided to move north to try another reef on the way to a sandy edge on Egmont Key where Lowman had been regularly landing permit from six to 12 pounds.

On our next stop, we drifted and jigged the edge of a nearshore reef, getting a number of hits and landing a flounder. Once again, the action was slow, and we elected to head for the edge where Lowman had been targeting permit. When we arrived, I was instantly mesmerized by the beautiful scenery and impressed when Lowman poled me along the edge with my eight-weight fly rod and a shrimp fly. As is often the case, everything looked perfect, except no one had told the fish when to show up.

After thoroughly working the area, we motored near some underwater structure when we finally located a few permit. Anchoring up current, we tossed flies and wiggle jigs around the structure with no takers. Looking to the south, we noticed a big thunderstorm building. After consulting the radar Lowman predicted we could make it back to the dock if we left soon. Although it was barely 11 a.m., we elected to make the run to avoid the storm. On the way home, we did encounter a happy pod of tarpon, but once again, we were rebuffed, even though I got two perfect casts at the school with a fly, and Lowman had them actually swimming around a well presented crab on two occasions.

There’s no doubt that we could have done better had we not spent the time targeting permit and tarpon, but had conditions been different, the outcome could have been well worth it. After all that’s fishing!

I look forward to another day on the water with Lowman and can highly recommend him. Lowman can be reached for charters at www.annamariafishingguide.com or call 941-465-8932.


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