Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
July 13, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 7/12/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

I guess water clarity and quality is still the big issue this week, and will likely be for a while. Our water is still like black coffee, and almost fresh in the Sound. Good sized bait is still almost non-existent. It’s hard to find a shiner more than 2 to 2.5 inches long. They can’t be fished without the help of popping corks on the flats. So, the bait of choice for reds, at least, is pinfish. The prevailing winds have made it almost impossible to get out onto the beaches, so all my trips were run inside this week. There were three.

Actually, the week began with my old friends Roland and Shannon Hartich, who were here for a short vacation at their beautiful home “Villa Adele” in Cape Coral, while is was between vacation renters. They had lost their baby-sitter for their son Nicholas on this visit, and we weren’t able to get out fishing, so we did the next best thing; meet Sunday night at Ballinger’s for dinner. We had a wonderful visit, and it was great to see them.

My customer for Tuesday called to tell me that there had been a death in the family, and that he had to be at the funeral on Tuesday, so we were able to reschedule him to Friday.

Wednesday was my first day on the water, and the first thing I noticed at the ramp was that there is hardly anyone working. My customers were Joey Brewer and his father, Harry, of Bethlehem (Hotlanta), Georgia. It was their first visit to our area.

None of us knew as we left the dock that morning we were about to be treated to one of the biggest thrills in Florida fishing. As we sped at 50 MPH toward Kiesel’s flat with dawn breaking over our right shoulders, I spotted tarpon rolling everywhere over acres and acres of water. I circled around and pointed the rolling and finning fish to the boys, and told them we could come back and check on them after catching bait. We didn’t have a bait in the boat, nor a tarpon rig, for that matter.

It didn’t take us long to load up with a variety of sizes of pinfish, and a bunch of tiny shiners, and I headed back to the area where we had found the tarpon. They were still there. There were “happy fish” as far as the eye could see. I quickly baited up a couple of medium pins and put them out. Nothing but two or three gafftop sail catfish. Well, hell! Tarpon love catfish, so I quickly prepared one as bait and tossed it out to sit on the bottom. Nothing! The sight of all these tarpon rolling all around the boat was driving us crazy, and astounding Joey and Harry. Finally, I decided to put a popping cork on one of the rigs and suspend the pinfish. Whalla! It was immediately eaten by a big silver king who immediately launched himself skyward. The fight didn’t last but seconds, but was a sight to behold. I quickly put floats on the other rigs, and most of the time they were struck as soon as they hit the water. Some of he time the tarpon would boil on the bait, bringing the expected reflex strike that results in a miss. Other times, they would just slam the bait and immediately launch into the air. There were fish of all sizes there from around 30 pounds to 150, and the largest we jumped was right around the 150 mark. In all, they jumped 7 or 8 of the Silver Kings, and missed many other hits. We made darned sure the feed was over before we left the fish.

Our attention turned to redfish, and although we didn’t have a great bite on such an early tide, we had better luck at getting fish into the boat. We chummed with sliced and diced pinfish and shiners, and presented small pinfish under the same popping cork rigs, with the bait suspended about 16 inches below the float. Joey and Harry managed to boat 6 or 7 of the bronze torpedoes, and missed several, too.

All in all it was a fantastic day, and I doubt that the boys will ever forget the sight of those silver kings leaping for freedom.

My customer on Thursday was Mark Dankos, a real estate attorney from Mechanicsville, Virginia. Of course, I had high hopes of repeating the tarpon episode of the morning prior, but this time I was equipped with proper tarpon tackle. I would have bet my reputation the tarpon would be back there, but we saw none as we passed through on the way to catch bait. After loading up with pinfish and small shiners we went back to the scene of the crime, and went into the stealth mode. I got on the platform, and Mark was ready with a pinfish under a large foam popping cork, on a Kunan tarpon rod with a beautiful Taurus 5000 spinner attached.

The tarpon were there, but not rolling or finning much at all. I had Mark keep a bait out as I polled from one area of activity to another, but the only thing he caught was catfish. He did have one take down we believe was a tarpon.

Worried about missing too much of the early incoming tide, we left in search of snook. We headed to Redfish Pass to check out one of the “Stickbeach” areas. I elected to go south, and it was rough, but once we passed Blind Pass, it really got ugly, and I decided to turn around. We burned more time that I cared to, but you can’t have fun fishing if you can’t stand up in the boat!

So, we turned our attention to redfish. I hit several great redfish flats before we found fish that would eat. Once we did, Mark brought 6 or 7 nice reds to 7 pounds to the boat, along with a snook of around 4 pounds. When it was over, it was over. I’ve talked to several of my guide buddies, and they tell me they’re experiencing the same thing. The bite is generally over around 10:30, or so. Summer fishing is always an early game, but it seems to be moreso here lately.

It was a real pleasure fishing with Mark for several reasons. He was a skilled angler, could cast well, and needed no real instruction. He only missed one redfish! But, he had also told me how much he had enjoyed reading my fishing reports for a long time, and that they were the highlight of his week. He said when the notice came on the computer he’d stop whatever he was doing to read it. Hey Mark! I hope you’re enjoying this one! We finished our day with a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant.

Friday morning I picked up Marlin Register Sr. and his son Marlin Register Jr., of Clermont, Florida (near Orlando) at the Waterfront Restaurant dock just after 6 AM, just as dawn was breaking. Marlin is a fifth generation Floridian, and I’m a third generation Floridian, and the Registers are big guys, as am I. I’m 6’2” and 240 pounds, and these boys were bigger than me, and we presented a load for the Talon and the new prop I have installed. But, it’s not often that I get to fish with a couple of big ole Florida boys like myself, so it was pretty cool! The biggest problem I had was addressing them. I’m a race fan of sorts, and remember the days of Sterling Marlin, and for some reason I wanted to call Marlin, Sterling! I had a real mental block. Instead of calling the boys Big Marlin/Little Marlin, M-1 or M-2, Sr. or Jr., I kept wanting to call them Sterling! The guys were kind enough to indulge my mental block.

Of course, I headed toward Kiesel’s looking to see if the tarpon might still be around and rolling again, but they weren’t. I had talked to my friend Capt. George Halper earlier in the week, and he’d said he was getting big bait over off Captiva flats, so I decided to go and take a look. Well, I found George there chumming for bait, and my friend Capt. Rey Rodriguez showed up, as well. There was no big bait, though. Not even any pinfish to speak of. After we had gotten plenty of the small stuff, and George was leaving, I moved up shallower in search of pins. They just weren’t there. Rey gave me a few of the pins he’d caught in he deeper water.

By the time we were done catching bait a pretty stiff breeze had kicked out of the southeast. The wind determines where I fish, and the first stop proved to be the best. With the aid of the wind, we were able to cast the small shiners a reasonable distance, and found redfish in one of my favorite snook holes. We also found a blacktip shark, a big stingray, and some snook. The spot gave up around 8 redfish, I think, as well as 4 snook, the shark, and the ray. And, that my friends was about the last fish we saw for the day. The bite shut down, there and everywhere else we went in search of fish that morning.

We fished hard on both sides of the Sound, but to no avail. It was over. Finally, we headed back to the Waterfront Restaurant where I had picked the boys up. Mrs. Register was there waiting on her boys, and told me she knew they’d had a great time by the looks on their faces. She was delighted to see the 3 keeper redfish come out of the Talon’s livewell still kicking.

Well, that’s how it went. Not the numbers we’re accustomed to, but good fishing with great folks, nonetheless. We’ve got some pretty good tides for the first half of next week, so hopefully, the fishing will be better. For the foreseeable future, though, backwater fishing is now blackwater fishing.

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