Oh! Thank Heaven For Eleven and Seven!
Capt. Butch Rickey
July 11, 2009
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Oh! Thank Heaven for Eleven and Seven!
I wound up with one trip to run this week. It was a hard one, but one of the most rewarding in a while. My customers were Larry Fleming, and his eighty year old father-in-law, Ed, of Jacksonville, Florida. It was my first trip with them. Our conditions were tough. We were on the full moon, and there is tons of small bait in the water everywhere you look. Net pluggers. I was shocked to see the water within 8 inches or so from the top of the dock that morning. It was way up, and the tide was not supposed to be full high until mid-day! We've had nearly a month of onshore winds, and I guess it has just stacked the water up and is holding it up.
We headed up to Chino Island for bait. There was hardly anyone on the water as we rode to our destination. There were only two truck at the ramp when we left. When I settled on the Chino flat a quick check with a rod revealed that I had hit the depth perfectly. We had about 3 ft. of depth over soft bottom with deep turtlegrass. I just hoped there would still be some bigger baits mixed in with all the little stuff that makes a Christmas tree out of your net on the first cast.
I had Larry take over the chumming after getting things started. I wondered if we'd have time to catch enough bait before having to run from the weather. I could see several cells building just offshore, and seemingly heading our way. The first throw revealed a good mix of tiny and big baits, shiners, pinfish, threadfins, ballyhoo, and lots of slimy, squishy things I couldn't identify. It took maybe eight or nine throws to gather enough bait, but we had a good mix of everything the flats have to offer. And, the cells were just about on us.
I don't mind getting wet, but I don't trust Florida weather in the summer time. It's usually full of electricity before it's over, and I want no part of that, so we took off south to try to skirt around the worst of the rain. We got wet, but not soaked to our undies! As the cell moved east, I doubled back in behind it to try to get on with fishing.
The tone for the day's bite was quickly set at the first stop. There wasn't one. The fish didn't want to eat. We were pitching a veritable smorgasbord at the fish that I knew were there, and they weren't interested. We'll after a few moves and adjustments for the ever changing wind which moves as the storm cells go by, we finally broke the ice. Larry boated a nice redfish. We had two or three more on, but managed to let them get away. Then, they quit biting as quickly as they had begun.
We made a move and set up shop for snook. We had bait after bait scaled by the resident snook, but they wouldn't go ahead and eat one. They were just letting us know they were there and antagonizing us a bit.
We kept moving. That's about all you can do when the fish aren't willing to eat. Move and move, and hope you're on fish when they decide to eat. The boys wanted more redfish to eat, but Ed had also told me that he'd never caught a snook, and that was the one thing he wanted to do. I had resolved myself to the idea that I'd stay out there however long it took to get him a snook.
The spot we were on was full of big snook. I pointed out the big, dark green shadows of cruising snook several times, so the boys would know that I wasn't full of bull. WE continued to bring back scaled baits. Finally, we had a crushing topwater hit on one of my live chummers. A short while later, another. And, finally a huge hit that sent the shiner way into the air. That snook wrecked that bait like a porpoise does a mullet when it smacks one with its tail sending it ten feet into the air.
After those three big topwater hits, I decided it was time to show the snook a tail-hooked shiner. I quickly removed the circle hook from one of the rigs, and tied on a small J-hook. It's impossible to tail-hook a shiner with a circle hook! I scooped around for a big, fat shiner, and sent it right out to where the wrecking crew had been. I passed the rod to Ed, who had been staying off his feet at the back of the boat. I'd hardly let go of the rod when all hell broke loose.
We all knew from the start it was a great fish. It tried unsuccessfully to jump, but we got a good look at the head and back. It was smoking line off the reel, and I was wishing it was a smaller fish. Ed hadn't even had the benefit of any instruction with a smaller snook or two. All I could do was hope that the hook had found the corner of the mouth, and that he wasn't on the leader, and hope all the knots held, and that the line didn't find anything sharp sticking up from the bottom.
Ed, who is used to fishing the east coast surf with heavy baitcast gear, was having a hard time getting the idea of pumping and reeling without dropping bunches of slack into the line. But, God was watching over him, and eventually Ed landed his very first snook. Eleven pounds. He was thrilled and worn out.
I hoped that fish meant that we were going to have a bite for a while. I'd already told the boys that morning that often the full moon pattern is no bite until the last hour to hour and a half of the incoming tide. That was proving to be the case. It wasn't long before Ed had another nice snook on his line. It had also smacked a tail hooked shiner. By now, all our baits were rigged that way. His second snook turned out to be a nice one of just at seven pounds.
We missed several other fish at that spot, and Larry caught some catfish, but it seemed that all the commotion we'd caused with those two nice snook had turned our bite right off. Not feeling confident the fish would settle down and got back to eating before the tide was done, we opted to move on.
After a good run, we were at our next spot, and had gotten back an hour of tide in the process. It wasn't long before Ed had a five pound snook to the boat. Shortly after that, Ed had another big hit and a monster snook on. It was bigger than anything we'd tangled with thus far. It managed to spit the hook, but not before it managed to jump nearly all the way out of the water. Ed sat back down on the seat shaking his head saying, "I don't think I could have handled that snook, anyway!" I tried to convince him he could have, but he was sure it was too much fish for him. We missed several other hits before the bite stopped. My gut told me that was it. It was near the noon hour.
We moved on, and tried another couple of spots that are full of both redfish and snook, but couldn't draw a strike. We decided it was time to feed ourselves, and headed off to the Waterfront Restaurant. It had been a very tough, yet rewarding morning with two great guys who were very patient with the slow bite. Back at the ramp I talked with three other guides who reported they hadn't gotten a bite until after ten o'clock, and then it wasn't much. We'd actually had a four fish day, but all I could think was, "Oh, thank Heaven for the eleven and seven!"
Target Species:
Snook and redfish
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