If you are near downtown Tampa, and being close to the bait means something, the Davis Island would make sense to me. There's a municipal marinawhich you can find on the web. There's also a yacht club. You might ask them. I think it's the Davis Island Yacht Club.

If your in the west Tampa area, then you might consider St. Petersburg. There is a municipal marina there that looked pretty nice. It has a bunch of sailboats.

When I last looked at a chart, the BIG Bay had a lot of skinny water.