Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

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

REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 6/1/2002 by Capt. Butch Rickey

I had a full week of fishing, and with the exception of one day, it was a week of good fishing, and lots of big fish caught.

I usually avoid working weekends, especially holiday weekends, like the plague. But, for my good friend John Hitt and his son Charles, I'll always make an exception.

We left the dock at 6:45, and headed straight to Picnic Island for bait. It didn't take all that long to get bait in the well, and we were off for the beaches in search of snook. It's been difficult to get on the outside so far this year because of weather, but we had a great day for it.

We had descent action at the first stop, with a number of snook, several nice trout, a jack crevalle, and 2 mackerel in the boat. John got his best snook yet, a 12 pound fish that bested his previous big snook of 11 pounds with me. None of us realized what a nice snook it was at first until John had her very close to the boat. She was a beauty, and although there were literally tons of big redfish caught on subsequent trips during this week, none quite beat John's 12 pound mark. So, John held on to "Fish of the Week" all through the week, while some terrific fishing was going on.

As the bite slowed outside, we headed inside, and John and Charles put a few more fish to their totals including a 25 inch redfish. They ended the day with 1 redfish a dozen or more snook to 12 pounds, 5 nice trout, 2 mackerel, and a jack.

Tuesday, after the Monday holiday, I figured things would be tough. They usually are after a long holiday weekend, when the fish have been run over so much they go into hiding.

My party was Michael Shea and his buddy Tucker, of San Francisco. We left the docks at 6:30 and headed straight to Picnic, but were surprised to find a challenge there in the form of millions of small jellyfish that clogged my net every time I threw for bait. What a mess! Sometimes, there were so many in the net that I could hardly pull it into the boat. In spite of the mess, we managed to get plenty of bait to fish with, and were off to check out the beaches, again.

On the beach the bite was not what we expected, but I wasn't surprised given the poor early morning tide, and the nearly full moon. The big beach trout were biting much better than the snook. After a dozen or so trout, and only a snook or two, we decided to head inside to chase snook. We found a few, and Mike and Tuck boated about 8 of them. But, the excitement of the day came when Mike hooked a monster of a snook that would have easily beaten John Hitt's 12 pound snook for fish of the week, but the hook pulled not long after the fight began. We were also able to identify a couple of redfish hits that were missed. We topped off our morning with a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant.

Wednesday morning, I was to pick up Dan and Joan DeRango, of Orlando, at South Seas Plantation. I decided it would be prudent to catch bait at Picnic before heading north, and met up with Dan and Joan around 7:30. Since the majority of the snook population is on the outside this time of year, we once again headed to the beaches. But with the bright night and poor morning tide, we had absolutely no bite there. I think we caught all of 1 snook and 2 trout. Frustrated, I told Dan we were going to go inside and look for redfish, although reds had been scarce by all reports I'd heard.

I ran to a flat in the north end of the Sound and searching for redfish with the Talon running about as slow as she will go with the tabs down. It wasn't long before I ran right across a big school of several hundred fish in about three feet of water, and spun around and got position on them. I began chumming with live and fresh cut shiners, threadfins, and pinfish. Within a half hour we had absolute pandemonium going on. The fish went crazy. We were hooking redfish 3 and 4 at a time. The fish were running from 8 to 11 pounds for the most part. Beautiful reds! One big red managed to pin Joan against the boat with the rod, and snapped it like a toothpick. That's one thing you can never let a fish do to you at boatside. You must get the rod down into the water with the fish and keep rod and line off the boat hull.

An hour or so later, Dan let a big redfish scoot out of his hands as he was reviving it with the Boga Grip still in it's mouth, but not strapped to Dan's wrist. The fish laid on the bottom next to the boat, in shock and anchored by the Boga. Dan decided to get into the water and try to recover both. I warned him to grab the fish from the front, which he did, and he managed to land both for a second time. The background for this report is of Dan in the water with his red.

We had a fantastic day with those redfish, and by the time it was over Dan and Joanie had caught a good 30 big reds, the snook and a couple of trout for the Slam. What a day!

As good as Wednesday was for Dan and Joan, Thursday was even better for Ed Mahoney, and his friends Tom and Mike. I caught bait at Picnic Island, and headed straight for the flats, knowing those redfish would be right there again. And they were. In fact, there were probably five big schools pushing all over the flat, and it didn't take too long before we had them ganged up in front of us, eating our chum and baits. It was a very still morning, with hardly a whisper of air moving. It was hot! And, it made for tough casting. So, to get the baits out to the fish we were using popping corks. The fish went crazy! They were on such a feeding frenzy that they were striking the broken corks floating on top of the water like they were live baits. It was like watching little hand grenades going off all over the place. Incredible!

Ed, Tom, and Mike were a ball. We teased each other all morning as they caught and missed fish. Ed said they were the "Three Stooges", and he was Mo! We had a ball and lots of laughs, all the while catching big redfish three and four at a time. The biggest was 11.5 pounds, and most of them were 9 to 11. We also caught one trout, and along with nearly 40 redfish, it was quite a day. In fact, we left the fish biting! We had a victory lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant, of course.

Friday was a day of returning to reality. Jellyfish invaded the bait flats and made catching bait nasty and tough. The tide was very poor, and the fish didn't want to eat for Mark Vondenheuvel and his sons Sam and Joe, ages 11 and 9. We headed straight to the flats where we had spanked the redfish for the last two days, and the big schools were right there. But, they weren't in the mood to eat. I was convinced from years of experience with them that patience would reward us with a bite, so we stayed with them, chumming and feeding them. But, they ignored our offerings. We had only two hits, and both were missed. I was seriously frustrated.

In frustration and defeat, I left and took the boys to a great trout area, and hope for the best. I didn't even know it I could find trout that would eat, because of the same conditions that had the reds shut down. But, we found them finally in a couple of my favorite small holes, and the boys thought it was pretty cool to catch a bunch of trout pretty quickly. It was indeed a tough day, but ended on a positive note.

Well, we're entering our rainy season any day, now, as well as the hurricane season. Everything seems different this year. The snook bite outside seems almost non-existent. Everyone is saying redfish are scarce, and it's for sure they're not showing up in the places I'm used to catching them. On top of that, we're entering a week of very poor tides, so it's anyone's guess how the fish will act next week.

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