Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
September 19, 2000
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 9/2/2000

If I had to describe the situation this week with just one word it would be rain, rain, rain. Because of unseasonable morning storms streaming in off the Gulf for two days in a row, there are only two fishing days to report on.

Tuesday morning my good friend and BarHopp'R regular Kevin Haag of Douglas Realty in Cape Coral, met me at the ramp instead of me picking him up at the Waterfront Restaurant as usual. His good friend Rick, whom I hadn't seen in a while was with him. We headed out to catch ladyfish for bait, and it turned out that Kevin's home is not far from where we were on the water. I'll probably pick him up at his dock next time! It took about an hour to catch 4 ladyfish and 6 nice trout. 4 ladyfish is usually plenty for a morning of fishing.

We fished several of my favorite places, but the reds would have nothing to do with us. So, I made a change of geography to another of my favorite areas, and that was the charm. I'm still experimenting with circle hooks, but even with them he boys missed a lot of fish. We had around 20 reds take our baits, but the final number in the boat was 8. Actually, that's batting nearly 500, and that's not bad for the light line, long cast style of fishing, especially for guys that don't get to do it often. I would like to have really slayed the reds (figure of speech only), but we had a good time. Kevin and Rick are always fun and entertaining, and keep me laughing.

Wednesday and Thursday the rains came, and poor Dave Bruening, of Lehigh Acres, was canceled twice. We'll try it again next week. Friday belonged to Joe DeRado, of New Jersey, and his father-in-law George Petrisko. Joe and George had been rescheduled from the week before because of the threat of Debbie. This was their first time for this type of fishing, and I wanted it to be good. We had a really late tide, turning incoming at around eleven o'clock. I figured the rains of the previous two days would have the water cooled sufficiently that the afternoon heating wouldn't be a problem. Bait was my biggest concern.

We headed to Chino to get bait, and the flat near the island was absolutely lousy with bait. We got beautiful shiners and pinfish, and were off. We still had to wait on the water to rise some, so I headed to the second set of power lines at around the 6 and 7th poles. There are often ladyfish there during the day. We fished for a while and caught a couple of trout, but no ladies. There were huge schools of bait everywhere, even thicker than at Chino!

Finally, we headed to the flats to fish the incoming tide. The redfish had other ideas, though. I had seen fish at the first several stops we made, and knew they were there, but they would have nothing to do with our baits. Oh, for some ladyfish! I fished 6 of my favorite redfish holes without so much as a hit! Joe and George had to be back in at five o'clock and the clock was wasting away. I was starting to get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I decided that a change of venue was in order.

I hadn't fished the bushes for reds in quite some time, but fishing the flats wasn't working for whatever reason. So, I headed to one of my favorite south wind spots that offers beautiful reliefs back into the mangroves. That's something I always look for when fishing reds in the bushes. It allows me to get the bait back in close to the fish. You just have to be able to hit the pockets from a good ways off. We fished for several minutes, when all of a sudden we had a double hookup. I knew I had found fish that would eat. I'd had more than just a few 30 and 40 redfish days at this spot. For the next hour and a half Joe and George were treated to some pretty good redfish action. They had about 25 fish on, and boated 10 to 12. We lost track for sure. There were early strikes, break-offs, etc., but they did pretty darned well for their first time out. All of their learning was compacted into that hour and a half, but they got the hang of it toward the end.

Finally, we had to leave the fish biting well. Even though the tide was done, the fish were still eating, and I'm betting we could have stayed right there and caught another 10 or so. Joe admitted that he was about ready to throw in the towel before that rally. Joe also got the biggest red at over 8 pounds. We had a blast for that last couple hours. I heard Joe repeatedly say, "Boy, I'm excited, now!" Even though we had beautiful shiners, every redfish was caught on sliced and diced pinfish.

I believe we'll be seeing increasingly good redfish action, and snook action on the flats as we head into September and October.

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