Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
June 29, 2002
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 6/29/2002

by

Capt. Butch Rickey

There were three outings to talk about this week. There were plenty of redfish around early in the week.

Monday was my first trip with Steve Bales and George Holcomb, of Knocksville, Tennessee. They’re avid fishermen and great fishing buddies. This was their first time for our brand of fishing.

We headed to Chino Island for bait, and at the first stop on the west bar, we found nothing but little pinfish and small threadfins and shiners. They were too small for bait. I moved to the east bar where the were big schools of bait on the surface all around, and it didn’t take long to load up with great looking bait. I kept quite a few pinfish, and was later glad that I did.

We headed to the first stop for the day, a snook hole. George lost a nice fish there, but it was the only one we could get to eat. After several other stops at nearby snook holes with no results, I decided it was time to go redfishing, as the tide was getting about right.

I went to a nearby flat that has beautiful patchy bottom that the reds seem to love. It’s a flat that I have caught many reds on in years gone by, but I hadn’t been there in some time. I chummed my way in from the edge of the flat, and on the second move we were into fish. They were feeding well. The first fish we caught were all 19 to 20 inches, and after catching a bunch of those, a school of larger reds moved in that were running 25 to 26 inches. Near the end of our bite the fish were 29 to 30 inches, which tells me that yet another school of reds had moved on the flat.

George and Steve had a ball, and even with missing and breaking off several fish, they managed to boat a good 24 or more redfish. After so much fun, we were ready to head in and I couldn’t get the boat started. I figured I had flooded the motor, and keep a fresh set of sparkplugs on board. Keeping plugs on board has become a necessity now because of all the slow running we are forced to do because of all these stupid arbitrary and capricious manatee zones. Two stroke engines don’t like all this idling around. They’re made to run.

I was confident the motor would fire after the plug change, but it didn’t. I was officially worried. I knew it was just a matter of time before the afternoon storms would begin brewing, and I didn’t even want to think about being trapped out there in them. Of course, my cellphone had quit on me the day before, and I was without communication other than the marine VHF radio on the console.

I began trying to call the marine operator, and couldn’t raise anyone. Fortunately, someone from Sea Tow US heard me and offered to place a call for me. I had him call my best friend Capt. Butch Boteler, and he wasn’t answering. We left a message that I was in trouble and requested a rescue.

We sat, and watched the weather brew, and fished a little. I decided it might be a good thing to begin poling the boat to some kind of cover. Not long after I began Butch hailed me on the radio and said he was going to come get us, but that he had to go gas up, first. I felt relieved, but knew that now it would be a race with the weather. It was brewing fast, and beginning to look ugly. I heard thunder. Damn! I decided to try starting the engine again. I don’t know why, as we’d cranked on it enough to wear the starter out, but I tried it anyway, and I’ll be darned if it didn’t light. I’m sure the looks of surprise and relief were on all our faces as we packed up and got ready to haul tail to the ramp.

We took off looking for Butch as we went. I stopped near where he would come out of St. James City and called him on the radio, and he finally answered. He was on the water not far from his home. I told him we were running, and sent him home, and we took off for Punta Rassa. Now, we could see lightning dancing in the direction we were running, so I sped the Talon up probably close to 60 to try to beat the weather. We got in just under it, thank goodness. But, as the weather reached the coast, the seabreeze managed to push it back east, so we never got the big storm that was brewing. Made for an exciting day, though.

Tuesday, I had my friend Stan “the Man” Priest, music director of Clear Channel Communications in Tampa, along with his friend Mark Sebastian, the advertising voice of Clear Channel, and Eric Muniz, known as Dj X, of Sebring. Stan hadn’t been out with me in a couple of years, but knows the drill. He said that Dj was the fisherman of the group, and that Mark hadn’t fished since he was a small boy. Well, that settled who we’d all pick on!! Poor Mark.

We went straight to Chino for bait, and I could see it already clouding up to the southwest. We went from Chino straight to the flats where I’d found the redfish the day before and began chumming. Before we could even get started good, we had a really nasty looking weather system coming onshore. It was very peculiar looking, having the shape of a nuclear explosion. I didn’t want to take any chances of being caught in a nasty electrical storm, so we took off back to the Waterfront where I’d picked the boys up.

We didn’t get back out to the fishing grounds until almost ten o’clock, but were in the fish immediately. We had a hell of a good bite going, and of course Dj X had the hot rod, but he missed some fish, too. Mark had the biggest problem getting the “reel till your tight” thing down, but he caught some nice reds after missing 7 or 8. Stan did well, but need a little refresher course. Of course, we had fun teasing each other every time we’d loose or miss a fish, including me. I broke off a couple when the leaders parted at the float. We had a great time though, and the final count was of 32 good hits that we could account for, 12 fish were in the boat. The bite went for some three hours, and when it was over we finished with lunch at the Waterfront.

The last trip was Friday, my 57th birthday. My friend Capt. Butch Boteler took me out for a birthday trip. We had an awful early morning tide that laid flat until nearly noon, and it was unbearably hot once we got to midday. The fish wouldn’t eat. The reds weren’t on the flats. We had fun throwing topwater plugs, and I managed to catch a jack on a Top Pup.

We could see the weather brewing to the east and decided to find some fishing spots closer to home in case we had to run from the weather. We stopped at an old snook hole I used to fish a lot and got a couple of hits, but no commitments. We moved on to a spot in Matlacha that finally gave us some fish. We managed to catch a half dozen snook, and had some really nice hits, before we decided to get in under the weather. We ran through some rain going back to the ramp, but got there before the bad stuff came in. I told Butch he had about an hour before it hit, and I’m sure he made it home all right.

Back at the BarHopp’R fishcamp, I just had enough time to run through the shower before it was booming and crashing. It was the first good afternoon thunderstorm of the summer here at the camp, and I just love them.

The tides get better toward the latter part of next week, but of course we have a holiday, and the water will be crazy. July is looking disastrous as of right now. There are way too many open dates, so come on some of you Florida fishermen. Let’s go fishing.

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