Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
March 5, 2002
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 3/2/2002 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Here most of us guides sit, finally with full calendars, and Mother Nature has other ideas. I had six trips on the books for the last of February, first of March, but only got to run three of them due to cold weather and high winds.

First up on Monday was Dr. John Cyr and his son, of Louisville, Kentucky. We had a good tide, and a front had just blown through, but without much associated weather. I had hopes that it wouldn't affect the fishing all that much. We got plenty of good bait at Picnic Island, but when we got to the first stop I realized my hopes for good fishing weren't likely to be realized. Mother Nature had given our fish a giant case of "lockjaw". We fished hard, and hit many great spots, but the fish just didn't want to eat, and we finished the day with 3 snook and 3 trout. That's a tough day!

What a difference one day can make. We joke about the "you should have been here yesterday" syndrome. But for Dr. John Cyr, it would be "you should have been here tomorrow!" My customers were Gary Ravo and Brian Crowder, both of the Atlanta area. We were greeted that Tuesday morning by light and variable breezes and highs in the 80's. I was looking for a good day.

Actually, our day started off slowly, too! At our first several stops, and long into the morning, we found the action very slow. We did catch some very nice trout. But, at the fourth or fifth stop we found the big snook action I was looking for. This was the beginning of a real fishing lesson for Gary and Brian. They had never been shown how to really put pressure on a big fish with light tackle. They were both shocked at how much pressure they could put on these big snook without breaking them off, if it's simply done correctly.

We had big snook after big snook crash our baits, and the boys broke off, outright missed, or otherwise lost plenty of them, but they put about 8 very nice snook into the boat, along with lots of big trout, and a flounder. Gary told me he was a bit disappointed with the slow start, but couldn't believe how the day had turned out.

The next three days were total blowouts! Saturday morning was a second attempt at fishing with Shawn Barnett and Jayson Richards. It was howling like hell out of the south, and there were no days to reschedule. I was pretty sure we could get something going if we went, although the fronts had been coming at us so frequently, I wasn't sure if the rules still applied. We went!

The first problem that arose was bait. We caught about half dozen shiners on one throw at Picnic Island, and that was the last shiner we saw. Nothing at Tarpon Bay. We would have to fish with pinfish, of which we had managed to catch a few. I also had stopped and bought some shrimp, just in case.

The ride up into the Sound was a tough one. I learned later that according to WeatherBug, we had wind averaging 22 MPH, and gusting to 32 out of the southwest. I elected to fish on the west side of the Sound to try to stay out of the worst of the wind, and thinking the ride home would be a little easier. I figured the best thing I could do with the pinfish we had was to use them for chum, and try to get some redfish going. We were treated and greeted by floating dead fish everywhere, blow in on the south winds from the last front. I wondered if we'd catch anything.

I chummed and put out cut baits and moved several times without the first hit. The wind was so fierce, it would just pull all the lines around and put them together. There was no spreading the baits out on the flats. As I was about to pull anchor and make a major move, the first rod went off. It was a beautiful 30 inch redfish, and it was Shawn's first. Over the next couple hours, we caught 4 more, and missed and broke off another 3, and caught a couple of big trout. Jayson not only caught his first redfish, but his first fish ever. Then it was over. I had not been able to keep the fish with us with the chum, or they just quit eating. Don't know for sure. But the fish we did catch were all around the 10 pound mark, and the trout were just under 4. We decided to call it a day, as we were all but being blown right out of the boat. The ride home was not bad, as I ran along the mangroves in the sanctuary wherever possible.

Next week is booked solid, but the weather prospects already don't look good. Seems we're going to get winter with a vengeance now that we're in March.

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