Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
April 30, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 4/26/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

The fronts just keep on coming! Here we are nearly done with April, yet we are still seeing winter cold fronts make it down to Florida to wreck our weather. It was a week of tough tides, so I only had three days booked. The big front wrecked Friday and Saturday with heavy storms and rain, causing a cancellation of Friday with no chance to reschedule.

I started the week with Jeff Telecky, his son David, and brother Ken, from Buffalo, New York, whom I hadn’t seen since he was last down here several years ago. The tide was one of those slow moving all day tides that are usually very tough in terms of catching. The weather was beautiful.

We began with bait at Chino Island, and it came easily. Things were predictably slow for much of the morning. We hit a couple of snook holes that produced a couple of nice trout. Later, we turned our attention to redfish, and managed to get several to eat, and put three reds to 7 pounds in the boat. The best action came in the early afternoon, during a short pulse in the tide. We were at he right place at the right time, and the boys bagged 6 keeper snook from 28 to 31 inches, and weighing up to 8 pounds. The lost at least that many more, and capped it off with a big 5 pound speckled trout.

So, all in all it was a pretty good day. It was good to see Jeff again, and meet his son David and brother Ken. We had a good time.

Tuesday was the last of four trips with Scott Roeper, who brought his young son Jake along for a final day on the water before going back to Wisconsin. I caught bait at Chino Island before going to North Captiva to pick them up a the airstrip.

We had almost identical conditions to Monday, but the tide was even less desirable to fish, with no pulse at midday. We decided to see if we could get the reds to eat first. We worked them pretty hard, chumming and moving, and had seven good strikes that netted three nice fish to the boat. Jake, who’s a great little fisherman, said he didn’t think he could handle the reds, yet managed to land a couple.

Later we managed a snook or two, and I returned to the same spot we had caught the big snook at the day before at the same phase of the tide looking for a repeat. The fish were there, but not eating well. Jake had one violently attack his bait, and it really startled him. When he tried to set the hook, he couldn’t lift the rod! He missed. We finished with about 6 snook for the day, along with three trout, two of which were a whopping 5 pounds each. Scott, Randy, and the whole gang were great folks, and I enjoyed my days with them. I look forward to their return next year.

The last trip was to be Friday. We knew a front was coming, but the weather boys missed the call on the wind. When I got to the ramp Friday morning it was howling a good 25 out of the south. I knew that if we went, we’d kill the fish, but just didn’t think it was the wise thing to do for my customer Ted Weimer and his buddy Fred. I knew it would be wet and rough, and very difficult to fish. Once they arrived, they agreed, and we decided to try for Saturday. However, the front came through that night with a bang, and it began raining around 4 AM, and stormed until nearly noon. It was a major storm.

Next week is full on the calendar. We have tides with good height, but poor movement, so it’s anyone’s guess how it will go. Hopefully, we’ve lost our last days to weather for a while.

Tight Lines!

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