Nothing Better Than Fishing With Old Friends!
Capt. Butch Rickey
January 17, 2014
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Week ending 12/28/13...........
It's Christmas week. I had three trips scheduled. One, on the 22nd, with Eric Hubbs, which we had to reschedule. The other two were with my long time friend and customer Russ Hubbard, whom I've been fishing with for nearly 20 years. There's probably no one other than Dr. John Hitt, of UCF, that I fished with more over the years. Russ brought clients, employees, managers, prospects; you name it, to fish. He also brought his son David when he was 5 or 6 years old. He's now 22!
Much has changed in the last half dozen years. It seems nothing is what it once was. But, old friends are old, and treasured friends. I invited Russ over for a couple of days of fishing, knowing that he could use the decompression. Luck was on our side. Not only was Russ up and ready to come over from West Palm, his son David was home on leave from the Army. He would also come to fish. Fantastic.
Russ had told me he could come right after Christmas. We settled on the 27th and 28th. The tides were absolutely awful, for most of that week. Golfing tides, as I call them. I told Russ what he already knew; there would be few fish caught on such poor tides, especially behind a cold front. Russ didn't care, and even posted on his Facebook page, that he didn't care if he caught a single fish. He was just up to come visit and spend time with two of his favorite fishing buddies.
I came back from Sarasota, where I spent Christmas with family, friends, and loved ones, in time to get the boats ready, and be there for Russ. Russ and David got in sometime after dark. We spent what was left of the evening talking stories over cocktails.
The next morning we were at Port Comfort Marina to launch, and spend the day trying to find a hungry fish in Punta Rassa Cove. We fished hard, and I'm not sure we even had a dozen trout between us. Late in the trip, David did manage to boat a small snook. Way to go, David. At the end of the day I called Russ and David in to take a trip through a mangrove tunnel with me. (See video) It's not a long one, but is a nice paddle. From there, we took the back way back to Port Comfort. It was a good day.
That evening Russ treated us to a fantastic dinner and cocktails at Pincher's Crab Shack. We were all wired for some raw oysters, but the holiday demand had the oyster bags empty. We finally decided to substitute raw Pine Island clams, and they were awesome. I topped the clams off with one of my favorite dishes there, the mussels in white wine and garlic sauce. Outstanding. It was the perfect end to a great day.
The next morning we were at it again, but now we were launching from the A span of the causeway, to fish the area from there and around Fishermans' Key. I had hopes of putting my guys on a trout bite while the water was low, but that didn't materialize. We had tons of ladyfish on our trout flat, and it was just about impossible to get a bait to a trout without a ladyfish eating it. Make no mistake, though. It was fun. I had my cutting board on my Ultimate, and several ladyfish in tow by the time we were done with them, and had hopes of finding a redfish that would eat our ladyfish steaks.
The tide was coming in hard, now. We moved to what is normally redfish country. I carved the first ladyfish, and passed the steaks around. After rigging Russ and David with 3/0 circle hooks, we went to work. I guess you could say we staked out, and then steaked out. We never saw a redfish. I'm not sure we even got a wiggle on our ladyfish steaks. We fished our steaks in several spots with the same result. We also had a guide boat come in very close to us. I didn't recognize the boat, but is had a fancy wrap job on it. I kept an eye on him, and didn't see his guys catch anything, either. There was just a big lack of interest from the fish!
We called it a little earlier than we normally would, and headed in. The hand writing was on the wall. It had still been a fun day. Every grown man has a little boy inside him that just likes to catch, and it doesn't matter what. We'd had our fun with the ladies, and taken care of the little boys.
Target Species:
Anything That Will Bite!
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