Bunce's Pass Tides & Best Times for 2012 (West Central Florida)

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For the past four years, Ozello Shrimper has provided tide and shrimping predictions for the West Central Florida location known as Bunces Pass located in the mouth of Tampa Bay just South of St. Petersburg, Florida. We do this not only because we ourselves shrimp that area each year but also because shrimpers have continued to tell us that these predictions are one of the most useful tools they find online for planning their shrimping expeditions.

So, in the spirit of continuing to help shrimpers whenever possible, Ozello Shrimper is again providing a custom shrimping and tide prediction for shrimpers in the area. We hope you enjoy it.

How to Use these Predictions

The article divides the Tampa Bay shrimping season into week time periods and gives an evaluation of each day within the week. You can view weekly or daily tide predictions as well as moon phase information by clicking on the thumbnail images. Monthly text charts can be found at the end of the article. You can scroll between daily tide charts and moon phases from within the image viewer as well. To move between weekly time periods, use the navigation bar in the bottom right corner of each page.

While this article focuses primarily on the conditions for shrimping in the area, you will find a few entries that describe the probabilities of catching shrimp during the noted time period as well as some tips on how to catch them.

Please keep in mind that the tide predictions used herein are based on Boga Ciega Bay in Gulfport, Florida and the predictions and advice listed herein are for shrimpers using grass shrimping methods such as the Ozello Shrimper. It has been our experience that the tide predictions for Boga Ciega are most accurate when trying to predict the tides in or around Bunces Pass. Variations may occur based upon where you ultimately choose to go shrimping. Please do not make any navigational or life safety decisions based on this information.

General Overview of Predictions

Welcome to the 2012 shrimping season!

This year's season is a mixed bag. Tides are falling earlier in the week than previous seasons, meaning that weekend shrimpers will find less opportunities or less priviledged conditions than say, two years ago when all peak tidal conditions fell on Friday and Saturdays. This year, the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday crowds will find more to be happy about than those who get their shrimping in on the typical weekend days. Don't despair though, there are still a few good weekends in the season so keep an eye on the predictions to find the ones that line up best with your schedule.

Last year we encountered an early end to the season. Our best estimate for this oddity is the early cold snap that occured in December and the early end to the winter. We figure that the shrimp had plenty of time to rebound in significant number with less predators and made an early go of the season, heading out a little bit before their normal time. This is why you may have found less shrimp in your favorite spot near the end of June than previous years. With the early January cold snap that has been happening as of late, our best guess is that shrimp should return to their normal migratory habits this year. Shrimp tend to slow their growth during this time and we expect that this should delay their trip out to the gulf enough to restabilize the migratory season.

Overall, this season portends to be just as exciting and shrimp-worthy as the past. Keep an eye on the forums and if you need to know when to go, just ask or, better yet, go!