Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
March 10, 2004
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 3/6/2004

It was a busy week, with new milestones, and pretty good fishing, for the most part. My seven day week became six days when my friend Tony Ronci was forced to cancel our Sunday outing with his brother because his brother was under the weather, and the forecast was for lots of wind.

So, the week began with David Fields, and his son Josh. We had a very tough twelve hour tide to fish, and the wind was howling at 20 from the east/southeast. A tough combination. But, we went for it. David has fished for 45 years, for many species, and in far away places, and is a good fisherman and understands that you don't always draw the conditions you'd like.

We stopped near Chino Island and managed to catch enough bait without too much trouble, and no chumming. We had shiners, some threads, and some pins. Plenty to fish with. But, fishing was predictably tough. Dave and Josh fished hard, and through the course of the morning managed to catch half a dozen trout, half a dozen snook with the largest at 30 inches, and one redfish to give the boys a Slam. Toward the end of the tide we fished a flat for redfish, and had lots of big reds literally right in front of the boat. We threw everything we had in the boat at them; shiners, cut threads, cut pinfish, live pinfish under corks, and the proverbial gold spoon. They gave us the fin at every offering. The important thing was that we had gone out in bad conditions, had a great time, and made it work.

Tuesday was the first of three trips with Tony Caroleo, and his best fishing buddy, Jim DiMaggio. Tony hales from Jamaica, New York. Jim is a charter captain in Anchorage, Alaska. Jim had mentioned in an email that Tony was visually impaired, but I was a bit surprised to see them walking down the dock that first morning with a beautiful black lab seeing-eye dog that Tony calls Buddy. In a flash I relived every experience I'd had with large dogs in small fishing skiffs for 6 or 7 hours. Suffice it to say they don't do well, and it's not fair to a dog to strand it on a small boat. Kinda like bringing along a two year old toddler and tying him off to the console so that he can't play or move around. But, I guess Tony felt he needed him there, and there was no taking him back at that point, so we made it work.

We again had strong southeast winds, but the tide was much better than it had been on Monday. Tony and Jim both assured me their main objective and joy was just being on the water with each other, and catching a bunch of fish was not important. It's nice to have a customer take the pressure off you, but every professional guide still wants to put his customer on fish, if possible.

My plan for that first day was to get out and fish the potholes for outsized trout while the water was way down. But, the cloud cover was so thick that I couldn't see the potholes, sometimes even when I was right on top of them. Pothole fishing is a precise thing. You have to be able to reach across the pothole and put the bait along the edges, because that's where the fish typically stage. We tried to make pothole fishing work, but it wasn't working, so I decided to go ahead and catch bait and move to Plan 2.

We managed to catch bait again near Chino, but had to work a bit harder for it that on the previous day. Our system was that Buddy would lay at Tony's feet when we were running, and Tony would tie him off to the polling platform when we were fishing. Buddy was really very well behaved, considering he was out on the water, but being held captive away from us. He got really excited when we brought fish into the boat, and after Tony told me he likes to lick the fish, I would take the fish back to him to give a little lick before putting them back in the water. When we were running Buddy managed to work himself around so that his head was behind the console in the space I needed to run the boat. Tony told me he didn't like the wind in his face! But, Buddy was turning lights, baitwells, and bilge pumps on and off with his nose, so I had to keep a close eye on him.

Through the course of the rest of the morning we moved from spot to spot, catching a few fish here, and a few there, and moving Buddy back and forth from freedom to captivity at the platform. We had a good time, and Buddy got to lick lots of fish. Tony and Jim caught lots of nice speckled trout, missed a number of snook, boated 2 redfish, and a grouper.

Tony and Jim are great guys, and it's always fun to fish with a couple of seasoned fishing buddies, as they usually have a lot of fun teasing each other when they miss fish, catch fish, throw baits into the mangroves, etc., and of course they double-team the guide when he misses a fish!

I have to admit that I was a bit relieved to see Tony and Jim without Buddy on Wednesday morning. It served no purpose for Buddy to be on the boat, and I figured that it should be possible to get Tony from the car to the dock without too much ado. The flip side was that I was genuinely worried about the noise that Buddy made in the boat. Particularly the hard noise he'd make when he would bang the pushpole or the noise that came from his toenails against the deck. Those kinds of noise transmit far through the water, and are the number one enemy of shallow water fishing. One clank from a hatch cover, a foot, a cooler top; whatever, can send them running for cover and put an end to the fishing in that spot.

The day was heavily overcast once again, and pothole fishing seemed to be out. I decided to try to get bait first, and hope the cloud cover would lift. My best friend Capt. Butch Boteler had been out the day before and spent it scouting for bait. He had found great bait in about 6 feet of water off Picnic Island. I figured it should certainly be there again.

We stopped at the first span of the causeway and watched most of the guides working that morning throwing for bait, but didn't see the first shiner caught! We headed to Picnic thinking bait would be a sure thing, but it wasn't. We chummed and threw the net for an hour without so much as seeing a living thing. I headed to Chino where we had caught bait earlier in the week, and there was no bait there, either. I called Butch knowing he was out, and he told me to go and get the bait he had left in his big bait trap at his dock. Once we got there we found there wasn't as much bait left as Butch had though; mostly pinfish. We took the remaining shiners, probably two to three dozen, and a bunch of pinfish. It would have to be enough.

And, it was! We had a great day. The dynamic duo put a lot of fish in the boat! Early on they caught 7 snook including 4 keepers to 10 pounds. Tony caught the biggest one, and it was sheer excitement for all three of us from start to finish as the big snook lunged herself at the mangrove roots. She ran the whole length of the shoreline right at the roots, but Tony somehow managed to keep her from getting in. I guess he was keying on my coaching, but however he did it, he got her to the boat. It was a beautiful light tackle fish. Jim caught some nice snook, too, including a nice one of the trout jig we had used.

Later in the morning the boys put a good 40 speckled trout into the boat, along with one flounder. To finish the day I headed to the flat where we had previously found the school of redfish in hopes that they might be willing to eat. We chummed and gave them lots to choose from, but only managed to get one 10 pound redfish into the boat. Tony caught it, and was loving it.

Thursday, the working fleet was again throwing around the first span of the causeway, but I saw no bait caught. We headed up the river to catch some ladyfish to later use for bait on the stubborn redfish. The bite was slow, probably because of the nearly full moon. Ladyfish are very nocturnal feeders, as are snook, and most of our fish. But, we managed to put 4 big ones into the well, and catch a few others. Tony and Jim agreed that they're a lot of fun to catch. As we returned from the river and headed into the Sound we saw the fleet now anchored and chumming at Picnic. I didn't want to invest a lot of time there when there seemed to be little or no bait, so we kept going . At our destination bait came pretty quickly, but was made very tough by all the green slime on the bottom that clogged up the net and held untold amounts of water, making the net very heavy and hard to handle. The bait was beautiful, but I was worn out by the time we were done.

Again is was windy, but the sky was clear for a change. At the first few stops the boys only managed a couple of snook and several nice trout. The fish weren't in an eating mood. Oh, we had a lot of hits that couldn't be felt. It was the classic old snook trick when they don't want to eat. They'll hit the bait and stun it and knock the scales off the midsection, but you rarely feel it happen. But, they leave no doubt they were there.

Frustrated and wanting to put my guys on fish, I decided to cross the very rough Sound to check on a flat that I'm not usually looking at for redfish until late April. But, I just had a hunch the reds might be there. I knew it would be a tough crossing between the wind and all the big boat traffic, and Tony had told me he had previously undergone two back surgeries, but I decided to go for it and try to be as easy as I could. It's impossible to know how much bouncing is too much bouncing for someone with back problems. I went forth knowing that my very good friend Russ Hubbard, who is in sole possession of one of the worst backs still walking, loves the Talon because it never hurts his back.

But, as we approached the main ICW channel, I misjudged a series of cross wakes and allowed the Talon to pound. It sent Tony into orbit. He blew up, screamed at me to stop the *$@)# boat, and threatened to kill me. Humm! Now, there was a milestone, for sure; mutiny on the BarHopp'R. My deepest instinct wanted to get back into his face, but I knew that he was genuinely hurting, and that his words were fueled by intense pain. I felt awful, and kept my mouth shut, even though I didn't like that he seemed to think I had hurt him on purpose. He laid on the deck wrenching in pain for a few minutes, and finally began to get his composure. He declared we were done fishing and would idle home, but after some quiet conversation and hearing my game plan, decided we would proceed with trying for some redfish. Through his pain, the thrill of the pull of that 10 pound red from the day before came through. We were almost to our destination, so I put the trim tabs down, tucked the motor under, and went as slowly as I could and stay on step.

I hoped to spot the illusive school of big reds as we rode along, but didn't. We stopped at a couple of holes nearby and caught several more snook. We had decided that we would drop Tony off at South Seas Plantation where they were staying, instead of subjecting him to another possible back hurting wake, and headed that direction. I decided to look at the flat again along the way, and suddenly there were big reds everywhere. I had found them. I circled around to see if the reds were still there, or if they had fled. They were still there, and this time Jim was treated to the sight of them, as well. I came around upwind of them a ways and shut down. I made a quiet approach to where I had seen the fish and anchored and began chumming with live shiners, cut shiners, and cut ladyfish steaks.

I saw the school rise and move a small distance from us, and knew in my gut that if they were willing to eat, they would come. I made one adjustment of the boat a bit closer to them, but didn't want to risk pushing them. We could get the distance to the fish with Cajun floats and cut ladyfish cannonballs. Well, it didn't take long before we had the first fish on. Then another. And, another. And, another. We were suddenly on a great redfish bite, and again proved the ability of fishing a hot bite to remove one from the pains and cares of life. Tony and Jim were both having a blast, and I was having a blast just watching them and trying my best to hold the fish in front of us.

Things were happening too rapidly to keep count, but we were catching the big reds two and three at a time for a good 45 minutes. They had turned on right at the last of the high tide, and we were there to enjoy. Once they were done, we headed to the Tee-dock at South Seas to drop Tony off. At the dock I apologized once again for hurting Tony's back, and he apologized for loosing his cool, and we gave each other a hug. Jim and I returned to the ramp solo.

It was a great three days with two great guys. Yes, we had a couple of bumps, but I know that I have made some great new friends that I will enjoy fishing with once again. And, if you are entertaining fishing in Alaska, you owe it to yourself to get in touch with Capt. Jim DiMaggio. I know from spending three days in the boat with him that he's a class act, and a great captain. He brought me bunches of great pictures to enjoy, and told me many stories of the fishing there. I'm hoping I can arrange to get up there to fish with him during August in the next year or two.

It's amazing how fishing can change from one day to the next. Although Tony, Jim, and I had a great day the day before, most of the action came late. Friday, with my friend Chris Moles, whom I hadn't seen in four years, and his friend Mike May of Phoenix, Arizona, it was action all day long.

We began the day with bait at our secret little spot, but I figured it wouldn't stay secret very long as the whole fleet had no doubt seen me go by while they were at Picnic Island chumming. Again, bait came easily, but was made difficult by all the green yuck on the bottom. We still had a brisk breeze from the southeast, and were almost on the full moon.

From the first stop to the last stop the action was great. Chris and Mike caught tons of speckled trout up to four pounds, with many at three and three and a half pounds. They also caught a keeper snook each, from two different spots, along with one gag grouper. Then, at the last stop we got on big spring trout that show up at this particular spot around this time every season. Mike and Chris caught them on every cast for at least an hour, maybe longer. I can safely say they caught around 100 trout for the day, and there wasn't a one that wasn't in the slot, or larger. These were quality trout, and Chris was pretty amazed.

It was a great day with great guys who love to fish, and it was nice to see Chris again after so long, and to meet Mike. Mike said he'd definitely like to come back and do it again.

Saturday. It's spring break AND the weekend. Thank God I didn't have to deal with the ramp, because I was fishing with my good friend Dr. John Hitt, and departing from his dock in his Coastal 22. It was calm and flat when we left his dock, but by the time we had caught a few ladyfish and moved down the river, the wind was up.

We headed to my spot for bait, and too my surprise found only two or three of boats there. Also, to my surprise no one seemed to be catching bait. John and I began our chumming routine, and after a couple of throws with John's 8 ft. net, I came to a realization that catching bait in that slimy bottom is much easier with a smaller net that holds much less of the slime. The net is much easier to handle than a 10 footer full of yuck, and still catches plenty of bait. It didn't take John and I long to get plenty, and be on our way, leaving most of the boats still there chumming.

Now, the problem would be where to fish. There were already boats everywhere, and it was still early. I headed to one of my favorite snook holes, and found it available to fish because the water around it was still so shallow that we were sitting hard aground once we were stopped. We would be there until the tide came in enough to float the Coastal. Normally, that's not a problem, as the hole is usually hot when the tide kicks from dead low. But, today, on the full moon, nothing wanted to eat. We fished hard for several hours, leaving that spot and fishing many others, with only two snook and two trout to show for our efforts. John had one trout in the well, and I think he had already resolved himself to the idea that would be it.

But, I told him of the redfish school showing up a month early on the Sanibel side, and of the bite Tony and Jim had enjoyed, and we decided to go and take another run at them. I also told John that the action seemed to be coming on the last of the tide. It seems as if often on the full moon this is the case. The action comes late after the fish seemingly have had time to digest their late night moonlight buffet.

I didn't run the flat. It would have been pointless with the chop produced by the strong southwest wind. Instead, I took us to the scene of the previous crime, and many previous crimes, and anchored and began chumming. I spotted several big singles as I made my approach on the trolling motor, and knew the fish were there. Again, our offerings included cut ladyfish, live and cut shiners, and cut pinfish.

It wasn't long before we had the first strike. The first several strikes were spectacular ones on the live shiners under the Cajun floats. Amazingly, the 4/0 Owner circle hooks managed not to hook the fish. It was a trend for the rest of the day. We had 13 great hits, and managed to miss, break off, and otherwise lose the fish, and landed 6. But, they were a great 6 redfish! John had fish of 12, 11, 10, and 9 pounds, and only managed to get one fish small enough to keep at just under 27 inches. Again, these fish were running around 30 inches and better.

We stayed until we were absolutely sure they were done, and began the long ride home. What had begun as a slow day had ended with a big bang. John and I were happy campers, and I was ready for my one day off before making another long run at the fish.

Don't you know there's a front coming that is supposed to one again drop the overnight temps into the 40's for much of the week. The week also brings some very nice late day tides that are great for chasing redfish on the flats. So, it's anyone's guess how the week will play out. Stay tuned.

More Fishing Reports:

• All Reports by Capt. Butch Rickey
• Pine Island Sound Fishing Reports
• Southwest Florida (Cape Sable to Boca Grande) Reports
• Florida Fishing Reports
• Browse All Fishing Reports