Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
April 6, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 4/5/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

What was supposed to be a six day work week was reduced to three days by an evil, wicked, mean, and nasty cold front that came rumbling through here last Sunday. I brought with it record cold temps for us, making March a month of record high and record cold temperatures. Global warming?

The first trip was on Wednesday with my good buddy Russ Hubbard. It was our first trip of the new year, and he brought along our mutual good friend Jeff Stevens, and a really nice fellow named Dave Caple, of Naples, on his first BarHopp'R trip. Russ and I have had many great trips together with very few stinkers. Jeff had not yet had a slow day of fishing with me. But, I knew before we left the dock that this was going to be one of those very tough days. We were already fighting the influence of a bad red tide outbreak, along with weak tides, and the big cold front would be the final blow.

Although some of the guys had said they weren't able to find bait at Picnic Island, I wanted to see for myself. We headed there, and went to work chumming. We caught a couple dozen baits early on, but never saw any more. So, we headed to the third span of the causeway, and began chumming and soon had all the bait we could ever want.

We fished our hearts out, targeting trout, snook, reds, trout, snook, reds.....The snook were still in that frustrating strike to kill mode, and you couldn't hook one to save your neck. I believe it was Jeff who finally managed to hook one and get it to the boat. We managed to catch only three trout to four pounds, and that was with one of the best trout fishermen I ever had the pleasure of knowing, Russ, in the boat. Russ can catch a trout when no one else can, and he couldn't get them to bite, either. We made a couple of redfish reconnaissance runs and did find some schooled on a flat, but they weren't about to eat either.

We kept at it until the tide quit moving, and then took the show to the Waterfront Restaurant. To my utter amazement, Jeff, Russ, and Dave all ate the 10 oz. steakburger, without leaving a crumb. It's the world's best burger, but I sure can't finish one!

As tough as Wednesday was, I couldn't imagine that Thursday would end up being even tougher for my old friend Chip George, and his sons Chris and Ben. We had a great trip together last year, and have had some good days in the past, but I hated for the boys to have to see our fishing at it's very worst.

Actually, the boys did miss quite a few opportunities. There were lots of missed trout strikes early on, and about half a dozen missed snook. Later, we went in search of redfish, and managed to get three of the bronze bulls to eat, but missed all three. It's very hard to come here once a year and be instantly back in the groove. Probably the best part of having a good bite is that it gives the customer plenty of time to reacquaint with getting tight to the fish before striking.

We finished the day with two trout and two jack crevalle in the boat. We headed to the Waterfront at around 2 o'clock, and we missed the bite there, too. The docks were full, and there was no place to park. We cold see the restaurant was full, as well. We hung around for a while, but there was no sign that anyone was going to free up a slip anytime soon, so we headed home.

To be honest, I was dreading Friday. I had new customers, Alan and Pam Warran, of Plant City, Florida. They're avid fishermen just up the coast, and I knew they were looking for a big day. I had talked to Alan a lot via email, and could tell he was a very likable guy, but once I met Alan and Pam at the dock I knew we were going to have a good time no matter how it went, and they were quick to lay my worries about a slow day to rest.

We headed to the third span of the causeway once again and found a spot to anchor up with the fleet of guide boats already there trying to catch bait. I began the chumming process, and after a couple of minutes, turned it over to Alan. After five minutes or so, I threw the net for the first time. When I pulled on the rope, I knew I had a lot of bait. The net was heavy. But, we were all shocked when I got the net up to the boat, and could barely drag it over the side of the Talon it was so full of bait. We poured it all right into the big well and accessed the situation. I couldn't see any bottom in the well. We must have had 500 baits, if we had a one. I was afraid of loosing some or all of it because of crowding the bait in the red tide infected water, but they all did just fine. I gave our spot and the chummed up bait to an incoming guide, and we were off.

Our day got off to a slow start. I told Alan I thought it would be worth going outside to see if there were any trout on the beach spawning, or any early season snook. The wind was east, so I expected the ride outside to be nice. But, to our dismay, the outside was pretty rough. We decided to press on. I figured it would be just more of the same slow bite on the inside. By the time we got to our destination the wind was swinging around and almost south, making it difficult to stand up in the boat. We fished a piece of shoreline bass style, on the trolling motor pitching to the cover, and caught nothing. Zero! Zip! Nadda!

We headed back inside and began a search for redfish. I wasn't able to get eyeball to eyeball with any, but I was sure they were there, as I'd found them there several days earlier. I began the process of trying to chum them into me with live and fresh cut bait. Before long, Pam nearly had the rod jerked out of her hand when the first big red hit with a vengeance. I knew we were going to catch some fish, and hoped I could get them to really go crazy. While we never got the big bite I was looking for, we did catch five nice redfish to about 9 pounds. We were happy. Actually, I think we had a shot at catching a lot of them, but a herd of porpoise came onto the flat and put on quite a show working over the redfish there. It's quite a sight to see a porpoise throw a redfish out of the water with his nose, repeatedly. It's been my experience in the past that porpoise don't usually run the reds off when they come onto a flat to eat. But, today it seemed they did.

We moved to another area in search of snook, and were delighted to have a bite. We had a lot of the usual hit and run, strike and kill routine, but we also managed to boat 6 or 7 nice snook, and missed our share, too.

We had the West Coast Slam, and Pam was happy to have her biggest redfish. We were all happy with the day. It had turned into a pretty good day of fishing. I had met new customers who I know in my gut will become good fishing friends. We finished our day at the Waterfront, where we had a great time talking over a great lunch. How many times have I written that the best part of being a guide is the great friends you make? That seems to be the one constant in this business.

Perhaps Friday is an indicator that things are about to bust loose, again. The coming week will tell the story. It's a week of poor tides, but since the fish haven't eaten well in several weeks, perhaps they will this coming week.

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