Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
January 14, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 1/11/2003 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Once again, due to poor weather and business conditions there is only one trip to talk about.

It was a cold Tuesday morning when I met my old friend Marc Denton, who comes down from Little Silver, New Jersey, every January. It was 40 degrees, and I was fanatsizing about getting to take Marc out in the spring or fall, when the fishing is so good here. The water is still very cold, and I told Marc, his son Dan, and good friend Enloe Baumert, that it was a day for trout fishing. Trout it was!

Beside it being cold, we had a strong 15 to 20 MPH wind blowing out of the north through the night that had absolutely emptied Pine Island Sound. It was as empty as a big bathtub with the drain plug removed. Because we’ve had yet another long manatee zone rammed down our throats by the lies and bad science crowd, going up the river is but a memory. It takes a good half hour at idle to get through the Shell Island zone, now. We would have to find action in the Sound.

We headed up to a series of holes in the middle of the Sound that have previously given me big trout on such low tides. We fished hard using all manner of jigs, colors, and shrimp on jigs, and it was over a hour before we had the first bite. We kept working the edges and finally got into some good, trout on every cast action for a while. Fortunately, March, Dan, and Enloe are both patient and a lot of fun to fish with.

Once that action slowed, we headed for another series of potholes in shallower water, and managed to find more trout action. It wasn’t the fast action I had hoped for, but by the time the tide was done moving, we had put ten nice keepers to 21 inches in the boat, and caught many more. Marc and the boys know that January is a tough time to fish the shallows here, but had been blessed with a good weather day on Monday for an offshore grouper trip they had scheduled. They had done well on that trip, and caught plenty of undersized grouper, snappers, and grunts. Offshore fishing is actually much better for grouper and the likes during the winter, because the water temperatures they like exist closer to shore in the winter, making it easier to get to them. The problem is that weather will keep you off the Gulf for many of those winter days.

January is always a slow month, but this January is the slowest I’ve seen in my years of guiding. I can’t help but wonder if it’s nature’s way of thinning the herd. Time will tell on that one!

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