Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
May 24, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

RERORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 5/24/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

It was a week of very poor tide, and several days didn't fill. I worked Monday and Friday, and spent

the rest of the week networking my computers.

Terry Ryan, and his lovely wife Michelle, of Toms River, New Jersey, were my customers for

Monday. Terry had been trying to book with me for some five years, and finally managed to get a

day. I had great hopes that when the trip was over he would be able to say it was worth the wait.

We began the day with catching bait up on the flats near Keesel's shack. The bottom there is

healthy, and not covered with the green slimy stuff that so many other of our bait spots are, making

pulling the net into the boat a much easier task. Once we were loaded we were off to the outside.

We had a southeast breeze, which made the beach a bit bouncy, but I knew the best chance of putting

Terry and Michelle into great snook action would be on the beaches. The snook population in the

Sound is thinned down to the resident fish that don't migrate. Big numbers are hard to come by on

the flats, now.

There was already one boat in the chosen area, and another that cut me off as I made my way to

where I wanted to fish on the trolling motor. It didn't matter, as the first bait that Terry pitched into

the water was eaten by a nice snook, and the action never slowed for the next couple of hours. I put

the anchor down, and we stayed right there. Oddly, the boat who had cut me off was a single fly

fisherman, who never caught a fish, and eventually left. We never saw the other boat catch any fish,

either, but we were a fair distance away, and may not have been able to see well enough. By the time

the action slowed, we had some 30 snook landed, and a bunch that were missed and that got away.

We also had a couple of trout in the well, and only needed a redfish to complete our Slam.

We headed inside to see if we could find some reds, and set up our chumming operation on a shallow

flat. We weren't successful in getting a big bite going, but we did catch 3 nice reds. The largest was

11 pounds, and Terry and Michelle were thrilled with those reds.

It had been a great day with some great folks, and I couldn't help but feel a strong sense of relief that

we had managed to catch lots of fish.

A big cold front that was supposed to make Thursday a wet day, stalled and showed up Friday. I was

afraid it would ruin the morning for fishing with my new customers, Elliott and Nancy Danto, of

Kendall Park, New Jersey. When I arrived at the ramp I could see a number of the tarpon guys had

already cancelled, as the wind was blowing pretty hard out of the south/southeast. It would make

tarpon fishing and snook fishing the beaches impossible. The rain and storms were just to our north,

and moving slowly. I explained to Elliott that we wouldn't be able to get out to where the big

numbers of snook are, and would have to try to catch our fish inside. He was cool with that.

We headed out to Keesel's flat for bait. I notice there were a number of boats looking for bait at

Tarpon Bay and Chino Island. I kept going. Once we were set up, the bait came quickly, and we

were loaded to the gills in three throws.

The sky was looking ever more threatening. I decided to stay on the east side of the Sound, at least

for a while, and see what the weather might do. We worked a mangrove key in the now south wind,

and had lots of kill strikes from the snook there, and managed to catch a couple. There were plenty

of fish there, but they weren't in an eating mode.

The weather seemed to be holding, so I opted to cross the Sound. We worked one of my favorite

areas over pretty well, as the wind continued to crawl around to the southwest with the approaching

weather. We caught several more snook, and a couple of trout. Then, we were nearly drowned by

a fast approaching squall. There was no lightning, so we were good with staying. Nancy, who was

reading a book, was a real trooper, and never complained about the weather.

We only needed a redfish to complete our Slam, so we made a move and began fishing and

chumming them with live and cut bait. I sensed we didn't have long to stay on the flats, as we saw

several lightning strikes off in the distance. On the third move, a redfish attached a shiner under a

popping cork, which was in the rod holder, but he managed to escape the hook. I knew we were

finally in the redfish. But, within a minute of that strike, the lightning alarm at a nearby golf course

on Sanibel, went off, and we all agreed it was time to head for the ramp. We had to leave the reds

for another day.

It wasn't the stellar day of snooking I had envisioned for Ell, but he had gotten his first snook and

had caught on quickly. Had we been able to get to the big aggregations of snook, I know he

wouldn't have missed many. But, as he said, he has a healthy respect for the sea and the weather,

and there's always another day. I look forward to their return in December.

We'd gotten in just before noon, and before I got the boat cleaned and put away the weather was on

us. It was an all afternoon affair, and we had made the right decision.

I'm looking at a full week next week with some very good looking new moon tides. Monday is

Memorial Day, and will be a tough day to be on the water with my old friend John Hitt, but we

always manage to have a great time. The report for next week should be a good one, though, so stay

tuned.

Till then, tight lines!

RERORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 5/17/02

by

Capt. Butch Rickey

After five days of vacation, it's five days of work. It was a pretty good week.

Monday's trip was with one of my best fishing friends and longtime customers, Russ Hubbard, of Royal Palm Beach, and his customer Tim Rice. It was a still morning. No air moving. Slick water! We headed

straight to Keesel's for bait, and were quickly loaded.

Russ loves to trout fish, and I knew the trout were thick on the beaches of North Captiva. So, I took Russ and Tim straight outside to see if the trout were still there after my five day vacation. They were! They were there thick as thieves. We caught speckled trout two and three at a time up to four pounds, just as quickly as we could throw baits into the water. We didn't keep a count, but we caught a boatload.

Once we bored with that, we headed inside to see if we could scare up some redfish. But, the conditions on the shallow, clear flats were tough with no air moving. There were reds literally everywhere! Hundreds, if not thousands of them! Yet, they were so skiddish we only managed to catch 4 of them.

We wanted to try for the Slam, so we headed to a great snook hole on the last of the tide, but we were apparently too late. We couldn't get anything to eat. Curious, I went about checking the area out on the trolling motor. My God! The place was full of big snook. They were all over, and we had surely had baits in front of some of them. But, they weren't eating.

We called it a day and headed to the Waterfront Restaurant, where we enjoyed a wonderful lunch and rehydrated ourselves. Life was good. Lots of trout, some nice reds, wonderful food, and great friends. Isn't that what fishing is all about?

Tuesday was a very special day for me. I arranged to fish with my good, long-time friend Chuck Freeman, who has been a faithful friend, and my resident computer guru who has bailed me out of computer problems when they get over my head, for many years. Chuck and I are on the same wavelength, and have much in common. We haven't fish together in some five years. Way too long!

Chuck told me he didn't care about how many fish we did or didn't catch. He was just in to enjoying the

day on the water with an old friend. But, I wanted him to enjoy some great fishing action, so after catching bait at Keesel's, we were off to the beaches of North Captiva. The trout were still there, and we caught them two at a time for the duration of our stay on the beach.

Later, and back inside, we couldn't get the redfish to eat. Once again, they were thick on the flat, but just not interested in eating. Why? The full moon. Several days either side of the full moon, snook and redfish get tough to catch early in the day because they're up all night eating on the light of the nearly full moon. In the morning we have great tides, and fish with full bellies. A tough combo. We did manage to catch a couple of snook on the beach, but weren't able to complete the Slam.

No matter! We headed to the Waterfront Restaurant for a great lunch once we'd decided we'd had enough

of the intense heat. After lunch, we headed in and Chuck came by the fish camp for a visit before heading

back to his home in Ellenton. It had been a great day with a long time friend.

My good friend Bob McGuire was back on Wednesday, this time with his dad, Bob Sr. I was really

looking forward to getting Bob Sr. out for the second time. Our first trip with him had been on an awful

winter day, and we were forced by weather to stay in the river close to the launch. We caught lots of

ladyfish and jacks, but weren't able go flats fishing.

The Wednesday weather was good with light easterly breezes. Bait was good at Keesel's shack. Soon, we

were off to the beaches of North Captiva in search of those pre-spawning trout. I wanted to get Bob Sr. into some good action and let him catch lots of fish. This was the way to do it. The fish were there, and we caught a boat load of them. Bob also managed one snook on the beach.

But, Bob and I both wanted his dad to catch a big redfish or two, and we were two thirds of the way to the Slam. We headed inside in search of reds. It didn't take long to find them, and we were soon chumming and putting baits out. We didn't get a great bite going, but we did get 8 big hits, and managed to get two redfish to 10 pounds to the boat. Bob Sr., who is 78, was amazed at how hard his big redfish pulled.

So, it was a great day! We had met our objectives. We'd gotten Bob's dad into some great action, he'd

caught his redfish, and we got the Slam. The perfect end to the day was lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant.

Thursday was another day of high hopes and objectives for my new friend Mike May and his lovely bride,

Carol. Mike's main objectives were to catch his first snook, to get the Slam, and to show Carol a manatee up close and personal. Carol's objective was fish for dinner.

After catching bait at Keesel's, we headed straight to the beach at North Captiva, to catch lots of trout for

Carol's dinner. But, the plan was frustrated when the trout didn't eat. We were on the full moon, and I'm guessing the trout had spawned that night, and weren't about to eat. We pitched baits along the beach as we moved slowly along with the trolling motor, bassin style. We never saw a trout, but Mike did do a great job of dragging 3 nice snook out of the cover. As we trolled along the beach, a manatee swam right by the boat, giving Carol a good, if not quick look. She did turn and say "hi" to us before moving on. So, although the trout didn't cooperate, we had met two of our objectives on the beach. Now, we had to catch dinner.

We headed inside to the flats, and I didn't see the first redfish at our first stop. We moved on to another great flat, and found the fish there. I chummed them with live and fresh cut shiners and pinfish, and the cut pinfish won the day. We got a great bite going, and although we missed several and broke off one or two, we still boated nearly a dozen big reds. The largest was just over 11 pounds, and we had several of those. Carol learned how to pump and reel those big fish on light gear, and really got into it. They kept two slot reds for dinner, along with one nice trout that ate a cut bait, and gave us our last objective; the Slam! We topped off our great day with lunch at the Waterfront, once again.

The last trip of the week was with my good friend Dr. John Hitt. We'd had a great day last time out, and I

was hopeful that we could do so, again. We headed to Keesel's for bait, and were loaded up in a couple of

throws. I wanted some pinfish to cut for redfish, but we didn't get any there. I headed to Chino Island

thinking I'd find some there, as I had the day before, but we only caught the little guys.

John loves to trout fish, but since they had disappeared the day before, I figured it would be a waste of time to go looking for them. Instead, we headed to a great snook spot, where it didn't take long for us to get into the action. We saw something there that I hadn't seen before. There was a large barracuda, probably 4 feet or more, following our snook to the boat. At first we thought it was a big snook, but I soon realized it was a cuba. Why he never actually slashed one of our snook is beyond me. He seemed more curious than anything. Well, they [are] known to be curious creatures.

Anyway, we had a great bite until around ten o'clock, and during that time we boated a good 30 snook.

We never saw the first trout there, either. It's amazing how they just vanished overnight. We headed

inside in hopes of duplicating the redfish action of the day before. I felt sure we could. But, we didn't have the pinfish of the day before, and the reds weren't buying live or cut shiners. A fellow guide, Capt. Bruce Ringsmuth, joined us on the flat and offered up a few frozen sardines. We figured that would do the trick, but the reds weren't eating anything. We left without a red, but we'd still had a great day of snook fishing, and were happy with that. We did hit several spots along the way home, and had some kill strikes, and caught a trout, but no reds, and no more snook.

All in all it was a great week of fishing. The coming week brings with it some very poor tides, and for that reason is not booked out. We'll see how it goes. Until then.

Tight Lines!

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 5/10/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

I fished Sunday through Tuesday of this week, and headed out of town for a mini-vacation for the rest of the week. With all the red tide around, it seemed like a good time to take off.

Sunday was my first outing with Mike May, of Cape Coral, and his son Dave. I had been forced to cancel them on the previous Thursday because of weather. The weather on this Sunday was still and sticky. The high reached 91! I knew from talking to Mike, we were going to have a fun day.

After catching bait at Picnic Island, we went and took up residency on one of my favorite flats, in hopes of being able to get some redfish action going. I figured staking out a spot on a Sunday was probably a good plan, given all the traffic on the water. We chummed and moved, and chummed and moved, and in a couple of hours managed to catch 5 or 6 big redfish. It's really hard to catch those redfish in crystal clear, shallow water when there is no wind to put some ripple on the water. They get real spooky, and it's hard to get a bait in front of them without scaring them away.

Later in the tide we went hunting snook. We fished half dozen different places, but only managed to entice 2 snook and one trout. But, that gave us the Slam. And, true to my prediction, Mike and Dave were as nice a couple of guys as you'd ever want to meet, and we had a great time.

Monday, my good friend and long time customer Bob McGuire was back for the first of two days of fishing during two weeks. He was here along with most of his family for his son's wedding. We headed to the flats off Keesel's shack, in hopes of finding cleaner bottom in which to catch bait. We had a nice, cooling southeast breeze gusting as high as 15. I hoped it would be a different day on the flats. We had plenty of beautiful bait in no time, and were off to chase the redfish.

What a difference a day and some wind make! It didn't take long at the first stop to get into the first reds. We caught a half dozen or so on shiners under Cajun floats. Wanting more action, we headed to a different area in search of snook. The first bait Bob threw into the hole was devoured by a monster of a snook. This was one of the biggest snook I've seen in a very long time, and I'm guessing it was over 4 feet long. I knew that if Bob didn't take control of the fish from the get-go, it would be all over quickly unless he had the good fortune to lip-hook her, and there's no way of knowing that until it's over. I was coaching as hard as I could coach, but Bob just couldn't get control of the fish. I had tightened the drag down so hard you could barely pull the Power Pro off the reel with your hand, yet the fish kept stripping line. Bob got the monster snook close to the boat twice, and we got a good look at her. She was huge! The second time she was almost within touching distance when the leader parted! We were both heartbroken as we watched the big snook leisurely swim away, but that's snooking. At least Bob had had the experience of nearly whipping a world class snook. She had given him her best, and this time it was good enough.

We did manage to boat a couple of snook, and a huge 5 pound speckled trout. Then with only an hour or so left in the tide, my cousin Capt. Sean Middleton called me and told me he had the redfish going pretty well on another of my favorite spots, and invited me to come take over because he was going in. We were happy to do so, and caught another 10 to 15 big reds to 12 pounds on cut pinfish before it was over. We'd had a great day, and the big trout gave us the Slam!

The last trip of the week was on Tuesday with Bill Meyer, of Centerreach, New York, and his brother, Bob, who lives in Crystal River, Florida. We had a strong southeast wind of around 20 knots, and the high was to be 90. We also had the red tide blowing back into the bay on the southerly winds. Just what we needed. Seems we can't get rid of it. It's been around messing with our throats, sinuses, and the fishing since March.

Since bait had been great the day before at Keesel's, I decided to go there again. We chummed a few minutes, and were loaded to the gills in one throw of the TrueSpread net. We were ready to fish.

I headed to my favorite redfish flat, and quickly found large numbers of fish, al beit not on the part of the flat they usually visit. We set about catching some of them. I chummed with both live and fresh cut bait, and we put out offerings of both live shiners under Cajun floats, and cut pinfish and shiners. We had a descent bite, and missed some fish, but got 8 nice reds to 9 pounds to the boat. Once the redfish action slowed, we hit a number of other spots that always give up snook and redfish, but only managed to catch a couple of 4 pound speckled trout. Those are nice trout, though. It wasn't the stellar day I had hoped to produce for Bill on his first trip, but it wasn't bad considering the elements we were fighting. Bill and Bob were a lot of fun, and although we didn't get our Slam, we had a great time.

No telling what I'll find once I return from holiday. Hopefully, the red tide will be history and the weather good. The tides next week are pretty good, so I'll be looking for pretty good fishing.

Until then, tight lines.

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