Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
July 24, 2002
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 7/20/2002 by Capt. Butch Rickey

The week began with four trips planned, but one was lost at the last minute. It was a brutally hot week!

The first trip wasn’t a fishing trip at all. Rather, a shelling trip with Mike Roeder, his mother Muriel, and his two sons David and Matt, of Sulfur Springs, Indiana. I mention this trip both because it was a good trip for Mike and family, and because many readers may not even realize I do shelling trips.

We left the dock at 9 AM and headed the Talon toward Cayo Costa to my favorite shelling beach. I brought one of my favorite Stella rigs just in case an opportunity should present itself. I let the gang off onto the beach and anchored the boat. I decided to stay with the boat since the water was pretty dirty, and I didn’t want to risk having the wind shift and turn my anchor over and carry my boat out to sea while I was a mile down the beach. I moved occasionally to stay close to my shellers.

After a couple of hours they signaled me to come and get them. They were hungry and thirsty. The said they weren’t finding much shells, and I recommended they slow their pace down and look closely at the sand. Serious shell collectors don’t get in a hurry. After everyone had refreshed themselves, I took them to a different section of beach, which coupled with their slower pace turned out to be a real bonanza. The found all kinds of great shells including lots of olives, kings crowns, angel wings, tulips, welks, cats paws, sand dollars, scallops, and the like. It was a great day of shelling, and everyone had a plastic bag full of nice shells.

The following day it was my old friend and fishing buddy Russ Hubbard over with Jeff Stevens, who has fished with Russ several times. We had a very tough tide to deal with, and along with the heat, I knew we were in for a tough time. We headed for Chino Island in search of bait, and there was plenty but it was still very small. We loaded up with shiners, threadfins, and small pins, and were off to try to defy the odds.

We began with chasing redfish, and we found a good school on a flat, but the refused to eat, and we only caught one nice keeper. We did manage to catch a half dozen or so snook while we were fishing the reds, though. Once things settled down, we headed further up the sound in search of keeping size trout, and found some nice fish on North Captiva. We only caught half dozen or so of the “mighty seatrout” but they were nice keepers. From there we crossed the Sound looking for snook again, but only caught one more, and missed a couple.

You guessed it! From there we went to the Waterfront Restaurant looking for food and drink, and were rewarded with a wonderful meal and cold beer. It’s like finding an oasis in the middle of the summer.

Russ and I were to fish Thursday with our good friend Tom Davanaugh who was flying in that morning. Russ and I were going to leave early and catch bait, then head back to the ramp for Tom when he called from the airport. Our plans were dashed, though, as Tom’s employer had other ideas and sent him off packing for Vancouver, BC.

Saturday, it was Russ and me again, along with Tom Baldwin and his friend, Jesse Harris. The tide was marginally better than on our last outing, but it was also the weekend, and the water was now over 90 degrees. This is the time of year when the heat causes things to really get tough. At least bait wasn’t tough, just small. It’s forcing me to use weighted floats just so we can cast the bait the distance we need to get to the fish.

Fishing was very tough. We did find a school of redfish, but they were very spooky and we never even got a shot at them. I don’t remember that we caught a snook that day, either. We wound up going trout fishing, to put some fish in the boat, and Russ is the master of trout fishing. He can catch trout when no one else can. We didn’t kill them, but I guess we caught upward of a dozen trout, and kept 7 of them for the boys to take home to dinner. Once the action slowed, we were all happy to head to the Waterfront for a cool down. Man, it was hot!

It was a tough week for catching redfish and snook. Hopefully, things will improve next week with the improving tides.

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