Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
February 2, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 2/1/2003 by Capt. Butch Rickey

After seeing some of the coldest weather in decades last week, we actually began a much needed warming trend this week. Gulf waters off the coast of Ft. Myers actually got into the high 50's, with bay waters only a degree or so warmer. What we must see is an extended period of warmer weather to get our fishing back to normal.

There are actually three outings to talk about this week. And, as the weather continued to improve through the week, so did the fishing.

My first trip was on Tuesday, with Tom Collins and his 73 year-old mom, Marie. It was my first trip with Tom, and we elected to begin at 9:30, so that Marie wouldn't have to endure the coldest part of the morning, which began at around 40 degrees. In doing so, though, we missed the best part of the morning tide.

I decided to work a large series of potholes near Galt Island on the low tide in search of big winter trout. To my surprise we fished for well over an hour before we had the first hit! Tom and I were throwing the Bass Assassin jigs that have worked so well on the trout this winter, and I had Marie fishing a live shrimp under a popping cork.

I made several moves before finally finding fish that would eat. We were in a series of long potholes behind Regla Island. The sky was cloudless, and the sun was warming things up nicely. Oddly, the tide was at a lull, and not moving, but the fish decided it was time to eat for a bit. Tom had a hot rod for a while, and we took turns passing hooked fish to Marie. She was really cute as she pointed out with each fish how many we'd caught.

Once the bite was over at that spot we headed to the Waterfront Restaurant so Marie could take a potty break. We decided to have lunch and call it a day, as she had to leave for home that afternoon. We ended the day with 14 speckled trout, including 5 nice keepers. Still very tough fishing.

But, our long awaited warming trend was upon us, and Thursday, it was a gorgeous day for my good friend Capt. Rey Rodriguez, and I to go chasing tailing redfish. I hadn't been out on a fun day of fishing in some time, and the forecast was for light winds, clear skies, and high in the mid to upper 70's. Also, this would be my first ride in Rey's new 17 ft. composite hull Action Craft, powered by a 90 HP Yamaha, and weighing in at under a thousand pounds. Rey's specialty is sightfishing redfish in the shallows of our waters, and sightfishing bonefish in Biscayne Bay, near Miami. Rey has managed to build himself a clientele of mostly fly anglers, and he is very good at what he does.

Sight fishing for tailing redfish not only requires a good guide with a proper boat, but requires that the angler/customer be very skilled at casting with his tools of choice, either fly gear or spinning gear. The guide can only get his boat so close to a fish that is tailing in 7 to 10 inches of water without spooking the fish. And, sometimes the fish are so spooky that you can't even get within casting distance. Fortunately, those days are not the norm. So, it falls upon the shoulders of the angler to be able to place the bait, fly, or lure in the exact proper place for the fish to eat the bait, and not spook the fish with the bait. I think you can begin to see that this is not the type of fishing where you typically rack up big numbers of fish caught, but the ones that are caught give great rewards.

Rey drove us up into the middle section of the Sound to begin our search for tailers. He had been on a school there the day before, and was sure they would be there again today. Redfish are creatures of habit. Rey invited me to rig my favorite Stella 2500/Shimano V Rod combo with a Texas rigged shrimp, as I had done so many times in years gone by when I did a lot of this type of guiding. I positioned myself on the bow with my shrimp at the ready. Rey hadn't poled us more than a hundred yards or so before we spotted the first pod of tailing fish. He poled into position, and I made my first cast. It was a good one, but the fish didn't eat. I made two more casts before the fish spooked.

Rey moved us a short distance to another pod of fish that were tailing actively. I placed my cast about 4 ft. beyond and in front of the fish, and quickly reeled the shrimp on top of the water right up to within a couple of feet of the fish's nose. At first I thought she was going to ignore the bait, but all of a sudden she pounced on it like a cat pouncing on a mouse. I had the bail open and let her run with it for a couple of seconds to be sure she had it, then bam! I closed the bail and hit her three time with a very light drag setting to set the hook.

The fight was on. She ran for the boat, and ran around and under the boat repeatedly. She was much larger than either of us had though as we saw her tail break the water. All I could do was keep the rod down in the water as far as I could, but there was less than a foot! Finally, I was able to leverage her out and get her head up and Rey grabbed the leader and got her in the boat. She was a beautiful red of 10 pounds, and she swam off into the frigid water none the worse for wear.

Now, it was my turn to pole Rey and let him attempt to catch a red on the fly. I have run tunnel boats for most of my guiding career, and they behave very differently from vee hull boats, both at speed and during poling. A cat goes exactly where it's pointed with little input from the poler, but requires a conscious effort to change it's direction. A vee hull boat will change direction very easily, as it doesn't have the double hulls acting as rails in the water. Rey's Action Craft floats like a ping pong ball, barely dimpling the water! For the first hour or so I must have looked like the drunken sailor, and must have given Rey motion sickness as I tried to get the knack of poling his boat in a straight line!!

We moved to an area farther north, and found lots of tailing fish. But, they were spooky as hell. We were in the middle of the day now, and we had an eerie haze as the sun filtered through high cerrous clouds. Even though the water was very clear, it made seeing into the water next to impossible. Most of the fish we approached wouldn't let us get into casting distance before they would spook. However, we did manage to get within casting distance of a couple. The first was tailing actively, and Rey managed to make several perfect casts to the fish. She was apparently so busy eating that she didn't notice the fly. The second fish was a similar scenario, but I got the pushpole in the way of Rey's back cast trying to get the boat in proper position to the fish for him to cast. The fly was ignored on succeeding casts. We were on many fish, but the were acting peculiarly. They'd fin or tail typically once or twice, and that was it. They seemed to sense that we were in the area and would sound long before we could get close to them.

We only managed the one fish, but it didn't matter. It was a great day! Folks, this is fun fishing. If you think you have the skills to cast to these tailing fish, you should give this a try. Remember, though. This is one man fishing. You can't do this with two or three customers in the boat. But, it you're by yourself, and you love the thrill of the hunt, you would surely enjoy this kind of fishing. Rey, myself, and a number of our other guides can take you to the land of the tailers.

It had been such an enjoyable day with Rey, I decided to go out and explore again on Friday. I wanted to see if the warming weather had turned the trout fishing on. I suspected it had. I left the dock around 11

AM, and headed to Galt Island. The ramp was running over with parked cars, and I was afraid there would be boats everywhere I wanted to go. The warm weather had boaters coming out of the closets. When I arrived at Galt there were several boats already on the flats. I stopped and poked around for a few minutes and went on.

I stopped to investigate more of the potholes in behind Regla. I caught two very nice trout there. I moved on up north of Regla exploring potholes, and found one that was just full of nice trout. For several hours I caught trout on virtually every cast. My thoughts kept wandering back to two of my best customers, Russ Hubbard and John Hitt, both of whom love to fish a good trout bite as well as anything. They would have been in hog heaven. Anyway, I caught trout until I was blue in the face, and caught plenty of keeping fish. It was a great day on the water, and great to see the fishing turning on after such a long dry spell. If it stays warm long enough to get the water temperature back solidly into the 60's, we might even see the snook fishing turn on.

Tight Lines

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