Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
May 3, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 5/3/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Once again, weather put a damper on our fishing fun this week! Wednesday and Thursday were lost for most of us who believed the weathermen.

The week began with John Cahill and his son Lee, who the last time I saw them about three years ago, lived in Littleton, Colorado. He had since relocated here in the Cape Coral area. I met John at 7 AM, and we headed straight to Chino Island, where bait had been plentiful. But, it seemed that the last front had pushed the bait off the Chino flats once again, and we got enough to fish with, but not as much as I would have liked before it disappeared all together.

We made a couple of quick stops in search of snook, but caught a few trout to 3 pounds, instead. I had wanted to go outside and see if we could find some big spawning trout or early season snook. There were ground swells that were fun to run over at 40 MPH, that I didn’t anticipate being a problem. However, when we arrived at our first spot, the ground swells were breaking right about where we needed to have the boat positioned, a cast away from the shore, making things uncomfortable, even dangerous. So, we headed back inside.

Redfish were next on the list. We headed to one of my favorite flats where there have been many reds ganged up to see if we could get them to eat. With steady chumming we got 7 of the big reds to eat, and got 4 of them into the boat. The biggest was 9 pounds.

We still needed a snook to complete our Slam, and I headed to a great spot where I had been catching them last week. But, a guide who had seen me there catching nice snook was parked on the spot, so we had to move on. We managed to catch one snook. Most of the guys I’m talking to lately are having a tough time catching snook.

Tuesday was my first trip with Jeremy Sangermano, and his fiancee Amy. Jeremy and Amy are in their late 20’s, and a very handsome couple, indeed. They both work at Disneyworld in Orlando, as actors. They both love to fish.

We began our hunt at one of my favorite snook spots. We caught no snook, but did catch a nice redfish and some trout. With the water already fairly high, I decided to turn our hunt to redfish in earnest. As we rode toward our next stop, Jeremy mentioned that Amy liked to shell. I had noticed that his beautiful Amy was deferring to him, and not fishing. She wanted him to have fun without worrying about her. So, I decided that it would be good if we could let Amy go shelling while Jeremy and I fished nearby.

We headed to the beaches of Cayo Costa, where the shelling is as good as it gets these days. I let Amy off near where Jeremy and I would fish. I chummed our spot, and we had lots of pops on the bait, but only managed to get one snook to eat a shiner with a hook in it.

After giving Amy sufficient time to shell, we headed down the beach to pick her up, and head to the next spot. She had walked a good mile while we were fishing. With Amy back in the Talon, we headed to a patch of beach where there have been a lot of trout ganged up. They were there, but not eating well, but we managed to catch quite a few of them before going back inside to chase redfish.

On the flats we found plenty of big redfish, as usual, but they have been very tough to catch. We did manage to catch 3 or 4 of the bronze beauties, which gave Jeremy and Amy the Slam. Once we were done with the reds, we made a couple more stops looking for snook, but found only one jack crevalle willing to eat. It had been a great day with some fine young people.

Then came Wednesday. It was my second trip with Dan Diver, who had brought along his dad. I don’t know why, but when I got up that morning, I checked the radar on the computer, and was surprised to find a bunch of rain sitting just off our coast. There had been nothing in the forecast about the weather I was seeing. It didn’t look like it would amount to much, so I went on with getting ready for the trip.

At the ramp I told Dan about the radar, and he said that it had been raining lightly in Naples. We agreed that we weren’t concerned about rain. The radar didn’t indicate any heavy weather. We went fishing.

We hopped over to Picnic Island, and got bait quickly. We were loaded. We headed up into the Sound, and made two quick stops. It had begun to rain, and we were in our raingear. It had also begun to rumble offshore, but it sounded like the thunder that comes from cloud to cloud lightning, and we weren’t too concerned.

But, after a snook and several trout in the boat, we saw a big bolt of lightning out over Captiva, and decided it was time to head back to the ramp to safety. As we rode in the stinging rain, I didn’t notice any more lightning, but it appeared that we had an all day weather system socking us in. We were among the first back in, but eventually, nearly everyone called their trips.

Well, it rained all day, and the forecast was for it to rain all through the night and into the next day until around noon. Based upon the forecast, and what I could see, I moved Mike May to Sunday. Now, of course, Thursday was a pretty beautiful day. The wind did kick up in the afternoon, but the rain moved out overnight, and caught most of us by surprise. Most of the guides had canceled their trips.

Friday was a beautiful day for my first trip with Kirk Koshko and his lovely wife Patti, of North Ft. Myers. Kirk is a local boy who grew up here, but has mostly done night snook fishing, and wanted to learn more about fishing during the daytime hours.

We headed out at 7:30 toward the Picnic Island flat. I figured the bait would once again be gone from Chino, as it seems to do with each passing front. I met my best friend Capt. Butch Boteler and long time friend and customer Lew Joseph, who were out on a fun trip together. Kirk and I got the bait coming in first, so Butch and Lew came and joined us, and we caught bait for both boats. Bait was tough, but we loaded up before it was over.

We said our good-byes, and headed off in different directions. Up in the Sound, we hit two holes without action. I wanted to try to put some snook into the boat, and moved across the Sound. The breeze was all over the place, trying to come around to the west and make a seabreeze. It was making staying in position on a snook hole very difficult. The first stop wasn’t working. I headed to another spot that almost always gives up keepers, and we had quite a bit of action on our chum. We were still fighting a variable breeze, but I kept moving, and we caught some fish. Patti got the prize with a beautiful 28 inch snook of nearly 8 pounds. She was thrilled, and said she didn’t care if she caught anything else, or not. I think Kirk was pretty proud of her.

With a keeper snook in the boat, but not able to stay for dinner, we decided to chase redfish. I headed to my favorite flat. I worked them hard, and moved several times before we found fish that would eat. But, once we did, we had a fairly good bite. Having said that, it was one of the strangest days of redfishing I’ve had. We had a total of 14 big hits on the flat, and I think we hooked nearly every fish, and even got most of them right to the boat. But, we broke off several. Perhaps cut off would be a better description. And, a number of them managed to shake themselves free of the hook at boatside. Kirk said of a number of them, “I already had that one in the frying pan!” We had one redfish in the boat when we left.

We decided to try a few more snook spots before the tide was done for the day. I hit a nice trough in the McKeever Keys area, where we had snook blowing up our chum, and caught a couple. A short distance from there we pulled a nice redfish out from under the bushes to join the other one in the well for dinner. We finished the day with 6 or so snook, and two redfish in the boat. We should have had a bunch of reds in the boat, but sometimes things just don’t go right. We had lots of opportunity, though.

Well, that’s how it went. The weather reduced a five day work week to a three day week. What’s new? I’ll be running three trips next week before I take some time off beginning Wednesday. Hopefully, the weather will behave.

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