A Fun Day With A Great New Customer
Capt. Butch Rickey
June 25, 2014
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Week ending 5/31/14........
It was of course the Memorial Day weekend, with Memorial Day on Monday, and I don't want to be anywhere near the water on one of the busiest holidays of the year. It's pure insanity with a capital "I". I did have two trips on the books after the holiday, though, and one of them was a great disappointment. Read on.
My first trip was to be with Capt. Jim Gregory, of Montauk, New York, on Wednesday. He has a place in Flamingo MHP on Pine Island, and wanted to learn about the area. As a professional courtesy, I did not ask him for a deposit, and he did send me his liability release. As our date neared I tried to contact him for final arrangements both by phone and email, and never heard back from him as of this writing. It's hard to believe one Captain would do such a thing to a fellow Captain. If anyone knows something that I don't about his situation, please let me know. As far as I'm concerned at this point, unless he's in the hospital or worse, it's inexcusable.
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Friday was a really fun day with a fine young dentist who practices in Naples, Dr. Sam Cancelliere. Sam is a kayak owner/angler who has been fishing for a year. He has used shrimp under floats as his main arsenal, and has had little success with lures. He's on the right track though, as he mainly fishes around oyster bars. He wanted to learn, and also check out the trolling motors on my boats.
I had the boats ready to launch when Sam arrived at 7:30. We launched and set sail towards our first stop of the day. Once we were anchored there, I gave Sam a casting clinic, although I though he was doing very well for having taught himself. I taught him some of the tackle handling tricks, one of which is how to stop wind knots in your Power Pro forever. It was time to fish.
We split up but remained in talking distance. There was no early bite from reds or snook. But, we did have a big jack attack while we were there. I'd already seen once school go speeding by the way jacks do. But, these fish came in and stayed around for a few minutes and gave us time to catch some of them. They were raiding the large schools of glass minnows that are everywhere in Estero Bay right now, and probably responsible for the slow bite. Lots of easy food in the water.
Finally we made a big move to the east side to some of my favorite cover. Things finally woke up a bit as the tide came in and Sam caught his first two lure-caught redfish on DOA CAL jigs, and I got 2 snook.
By this time distant building storms had begun to threaten. We could see lightning and hear thunder, and we elected to head back to something closer to home. I stationed Sam on a favorite spot of mine, where he quickly had his third lure-caught redfish, and the weather moved closer. We headed to the ramp for safety.
When I went to get the van, my remote wouldn't work. It has a dead battery, I thought. But, when I got in and hit the ignition switch, there was a dreaded deafening silence. The dead battery was in the van. I checked the headlights and sure enough, I'd left them on. Damn! That's the first time I've ever done that!
I was quickly able to find a fellow angler waiting to pull his boat who had jumper cables. They were in a knotted mess, but he had them, and they were plenty long. But, once connected I couldn't draw any fire. We wiggled them and wiggled them on the connections at each battery. Finally, the van started!
I let the van sit and run while we went out to the cleaning station for a little instruction on how to clean fish. Sam assured me he was very happy with the day. He'd gotten 3 reds in the same trip for the first time, and learned a great deal. I had a great time with him.
Target Species:
Snook and redfish
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