Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
February 12, 2005
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 2/12/05 by Capt. Butch Rickey

It's a short report this week, with only two work days to talk about. But, the fishing was far better than in the previous week, and I also ran the first trip in the Talon since the fuel tank problem.

Sunday morning, I met John and Jeanne Shallow, down from Hermantown, Minnesota, for their first BarHopp'R trip. They had booked their trip way back in August right after hurricane Charlie came roaring through, and were among the first to participate in the Hurricane Fund (advance deposits). I knew from chatting with John on-line that he and Jeanne were super folks.

John was interested in learning as he was in fishing and catching, but I wanted to make sure we had enough action. So, we began by heading up into the Sound to some of my favorite potholes to chase trout while the tide was low. We got off to a slow start, as is often the case on those cold, overcast mornings. Seems like the fish need a bit of sun to begin to warm things up before they're interested in eating. But, it wasn't so long before we were on great trout action, and over a couple of hours of hopping from hole to hole, we put a limit of trout in the Maverick, and put back plenty more. They were all slot fish.

Once things began to slow there, we headed to another spot across the Sound where we were again in nice trout action as well as flounder, and added a couple of keeper flounder to the creel and turned a few back. The bait well was looking like a well stocked aquarium full of trout, flounder, and hand picked shrimp that I intended to use for redfishing on the next stop. I was just waiting on the tide to get right.

As the tide flooded the flats, we headed north in the Sound to an area that I generally don't fish this time of year. But, when I do fish it I usually am rewarded with snook and redfish in the same place. I knew the snook wouldn't be there in the cold water, but figured there should be some puppy drum, at least.

Once I was set up on the hole and ready to fish, I discovered that one or more of the big trout had conspired to knock the drain pipe out of the bait well, and although the pump had kept enough water on the fish to keep them healthy, all but about seven or eight of our shrimp had been sucked down the drain to freedom. If the reds were there, we would have to improvise and find an artificial they would eat.

I had John and Jeanne fishing the live shrimp impaled through the tail segment on a small Cotee jighead. I opted to toss a Johnson Silver Minnow 1/2 oz. spoon all around the area to see if I could scare up a red. John struck first blood with a redfish just under slot size, then another, and another. I stuck one on the spoon, as well. Jeanne lost several including a couple that certainly appeared to be keepers. I had given her lots of things to remember that day, and she was having trouble keeping the line tight while she was pumping and reeling. She still caught plenty of fish, though, and had a blast. We finished that spot and the day with around 10 redfish on, and I believe they landed 7.

All in all, it was a great day on the water, and John and Jeanne were as nice a folks as you'd ever want to meet. It was great to spend the day with them, and I look forward to their return. They'll be moving down in a few short years.

Thursday dawned with yet another cold front on our doorstep. The forecast was for the front to come through late in the afternoon. The conditions should be good for fishing ahead of the front. I had given the Talon a thorough cleaning and everything was back in it's place and ready to go. The patch on the fuel tank had been sitting for several days with no sign of even the slightest leak.

I was in the water and on the way to the Waterfront Restaurant to pick up Joe Fulton and his son, Joe. I had fished with son Joe and his uncle Bob in March of 2003, and they had caught lots of really nice snook. But, this was February, and the water is cold, and I warned Joe that snook would not be a viable option. Besides, his dad had suffered a stroke a year ago, and had a bit of loss of use on his left side, and had some bad legs, as well. I figured trout fishing would be the best thing.

Of course, it was very overcast and the sun was low in the early morning sky, and the potholes were nearly impossible to see. We fished a series of holes that are always full of big trout without so much as a bump. I knew the fish were there, but they were lockjawed. After working the holes over thoroughly, we moved to another series of potholes about half a mile away, and began again. The sun was trying to break through, and it seemed enough to turn the fish on. We began catching nice trout, although not the hogs I'm used to catching in those holes.

Although Joe Sr. had a tough time adjusting to the tackle at first, he did amazingly well, and before it was over he was casting well, and catching his own fish. He didn't need any help. While we were catching two to three dozen trout, I was keeping an eye on the northwestern sky, and it was becoming obvious that the front was going to arrive early. We headed across the Sound where I had planned to put the boys on more trout along with some flounder action, and then move on to redfish later in the tide.

The water was racing in with the aid of a good west wind, and with it was coming clouds of green slimy stuff that clogged our lines and lures as quickly as they got wet. We did manage to stick a flounder or two as I remember before the weather began to speak to us. It began to drizzle lightly, and I knew it wouldn't be too long before the front and more serious rain arrived. I asked Joe Sr. if he wanted to be both cold and wet, and he assured me it was time to head in. So, it was back to the Waterfront Restaurant for them, and back to Punta Rassa for me. It began to rain in earnest as I arrived, and I was soaking wet by the time I got the Talon trailers and cleaned up.

It was good to see Joe Jr. again, and to meet his dad. Joe and I will be fishing again next week, when he will be bringing along a cousin. He says he's very competitive, and it should be fun. It looks like one more slow week, and then both business and fishing should begin to heat up.

Tight Lines!

REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 2/5/05 by Capt. Butch Rickey

What began as a fairly busy week quickly degenerated to a week of two trips. In addition, the two days that I did get to work cold fronts had all but shut down even the trout fishing. Of course, tide were also a factor, and for most of the week, especially early in the week, they were poor.

My dear friend Dr. John Hitt was over to his condo for some much needed R & R, and we had Monday and Tuesday on the calendar to do John's favorite thing; chase trout! Our plans were immediately dampened when as we left his marina basin, we ran into a wall of fog over the river that wasn't obvious from his protected dock. It was eight o'clock. We didn't leave the mouth of the channel to his dock until nearly nine thirty. We had missed the best part of a very poor tide.

We headed into the Sound and to my favorite big trout area where we were greeted with tight lips. On numberous ocassions I could see big trout laid up on the edges, and the fact that we got right on top of them and were able to see them told the story. They didn't want to move for anything. Trout are one of the spookiest fish in our waters. Don't believe it? Ever hear of anyone sightfishing trout? Me either.

John and I fished hard, and had the water foaming from all the pounding it with our jigs. John altered from his favorite white curlytail jig to my Exude RT Slugs in various colors, but all we managed were two nice slot fish, and a dozen or so smaller fish that weren't in the slot. It was lockjaw city, and we couldn't find the key to the city.

As the tide flooded the flats we gave up on the trout and turn our collective attentions to redfish. It didn't take long to find nice fish laid up on the flats, but they were in the same mode. It appeared they were just sunning. At the next stop it was the same thing, I saw plenty of fish and plenty of muds, but no takers. They just weren't interested.

We finally headed home with out tails between our legs with our two keepers. Boy, days like that are certainly humbling. After some conversation, John and I agreed to cancel the Tuesday trip, for it was surely more of the same lockjaw. John and I have the rest of our lives to pick better days on which to fish. That's the nice thing about fishing with local friends who aren't locked into a rigid schedule.

During the week I retrieved the Maverick from Fowler Marine. The flat running off idle problem was as I suspected, a gummed up carburettor from too much sitting and not enough playing. The fuel pump was also ruptured and not functioning properly. While she was there, I had Danny install a water pressure gauge. Of course, no matter what you do to a boat motor it turns sour. Danny found no water pressure after installing the gauge and sender unit. He said that the most common cause of that was no thermostat on the bank of cylinders where the pickup to the gauge is. Sure enough, the thermostat was MIA. God only knows who removed it, or why. I doubt John knows, either. The real shock was the price tag that went with this little thermostat about the size of a quarter; $26.00! Oh, well! I'm happy that I now have a pressure gauge on the Maverick that I am so used to having on all my boats for many years. It's just too bad Danny can't make more than $2.60 on the thermostat!

I didn't have a chance to run the Maverick before my Friday trip with Scott Krepp, and his brother-in-law Ken, but I knew it would run fine. Danny Fowler is very thorough, and very good at what he does, and I don't worry about such things. He's also as nice and polite as they come, and if you're not having your boat maintenance and rigging done there, you are missing the boat!

It was cold that morning, in the low 40's. But the forecast was for clearing skies and warming temps. I told Scott that I expected the fishing would be tough, but boy, I had no idea what was to come. I headed to an area where I knew there were plenty of oursized trout so that presence of fish wouldn't be an issue on this cold and blowing day with a poor tide.

We fished and moved, fished and moved, with stopping the Maverick on the Power Pole on the 20 MPH plus wind seeming somewhat precarious. But, the Power Pole always did its job! But, talk about lockjaw! My God! I thought Monday with John had been tough. Scott and Ken caught three trout all morning long! One was a nice keeper, but.....

Once the water was up enough to have the reds well established on the flats we went to a favorite flat of mine and I pulled out my secret weapon; ladyfish! I also had shrimp in the boat. I put out two rigs with steaked ladyfish, and one rig with a nice handpicked shrimp. The only thing we caught was a white pelican wintering here from Canada. It's the first time I ever saw one of the completely wild birds go after a bait on a line. I guess it was really hungry out there.

At this point it was nearing eleven o'clock, and it had been drizzling on us and blowing like crazy all morning long. We were all socked to our souls, and getting pretty miserable. But, good company had made our trials and tribulations fun in spite of the elements. We elected to toss in the towel, and headed home, wiht a detour at the Waterfront Restaurant for a hot cup of coffee to bring up our core temperatures.

Back at the ramp I told Scott and Ken to put their heads together and pay me whatever they thought was fair and made them happy. It seemed only fair. Scott quickly told me that he knew I had worked hard to put them on fish, and that they were paying me the full fair, and even gave me a nice tip. Now, those are great customers. Thank you Scott and Ken.

I've had any number of readers ask me to share a little more information about these Exude RT Slugs, the Stella reels, and St. Croix Legend Tournament rods I use so successfully, most of the time. So, in lieu of pictures of my customers with trout this week, I've posted pictures of the lures, rods, and reels for those who are interested.

Hopefully, the cold front that passed on Friday is the last one to push this far south this winter, but somehow I doubt it. If we can just get our water temperature back to 70 degrees, things will begin to light up, especially snook fishing. Can't wait.

REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 1/29/05 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Winter fishing in southwest Florida is speckled trout fishing. There's trout fishing on the flats for small trout, and then there's fishing the potholes for the big boys! It was a great week of pothole trout fishing and the fish were to six pounds! That's big trout for southwest Florida.

A big front turned the weather sour for the first part of the week, and brought the coldest temperatures we've seen in five years. As you might expect, the schedule for early in the week was rearranged. I also had to take the Talon to my friend Danny Fowler at Fowler Marine to have a scary problem checked out. The news was not good.

Last week, while out with my friend Ed Regan, I thought I smelled a faint whiff of gasoline on a couple of occasions. I didn't see anything obvious, and the smell was very faint. But, that afternoon, after Ed had gone home and I had cleaned the boat and was putting her away, I removed the right rear storage box to get to the power switch, and was hit right in the nose with the strong smell of gas. I didn't see any evidence of gas anywhere on that side, so I removed the box from the port side. Damn! There was actually gas floating on the little bit of water left in the bilge. We were potentially riding a bomb. Thank God, there is virtually nothing in the bilge to make sparks, short of wiring shorting out, or something. I couldn't find anything obvious, so I took the Talon down to Danny on the cold Monday morning.

Danny is good, and quick. It didn't take him long to find that the hose from the filler pipe on the port side had been leaking, and running down the filler neck on the tank, and down the edge of the aluminum tank. It had to be a leak amounting to not much more than a very slow ooze, as I never smelled gas at any time I removed the box to turn the power on or off. But, it was enough to cause condensation which caused the aluminum to develop pinholes. At least, that's one theory. The other is that the tank fabricator (not Talon) used a piece of aluminum on the filler neck that already had flaws. Who knows?!

The Maverick Master Angler had not been performing well coming out of the hole since I had discovered the prop had severe fractures on all three blades. It was apparently a cheap stainless prop fitted by the dealer, as there was no damage to any of the edges indicating it had ever struck anything. I had installed the only prop I had left laying around, a 4-blade Turbo 18 pitch. The Mav ran fine once it was up on step, but took forever to get on step. I thought it was just too much prop for the 130 Yammie.

So, while I was at Danny's, I asked him if he had any props laying around I could try. Danny gave me a 21 pitch prop with funky, modified bladetips, and a 19 pitch similar to the one that had fractured. I went back to the camp and installed the 21 pitch. I didn't have a chance to try it before my trip on Wednesday. I went to the ramp early so I could try it out and perhaps change to the 19 if it was too much prop. A quick run in the Maverick seemed to be OK. But, a test run one-up is far different that running with three passengers and a full baitwell!

I headed to the Waterfront Restaurant to pick up my friend Bill Odell, and his lifelong friend Gary Meade. As we cleared the manatee zone and I rolled on the throttle, it was obvious there was a problem. I thought the 21 prop was just too much prop, as the Mav just didn't want to get up on plane. With a little help from trip tabs, and some patience, we were off. It was the same thing every time we moved for the rest of the day. I was convinced the 19 pitch prop would cure the problem. The motor was bogging badly, but I thought it was just because of too much load on the motor.

Bill, Gary and I fished potholes on the super-low tide and spanked the big trout. We started off very slowly. The fish were probably still digesting their eats on the bright night. But, we stayed with it and kept moving from hole to hole, and finally we were in fish. The biggest trout of the morning was 5+ pounds. Bill and Gary put around 40 big trout in the boat, and there wasn't a fish that wasn't at the high end of the slot. The guys have caught lots of trout, but were just amazed at the quality and quantity of the fish they were catching. They were caught on Exude RT Slugs in various colors. Color didn't really seem to make much difference. The main thing was the retrieve had to be slow.

Once things finally slowed down there, we headed to a spot on the other side of the Sound, where we were greeted with more big trout and lots of flounder. We hooked about 20 flounder, lost a few, and put six nice fish in the well. It was a great day of fishing.

That afternoon after cleanup, I changed props, installing the 3-blade 19 pitch, feeling certain that's what the Maverick wanted to run nicely. The next morning I met Don Spencer and his son David, from Orlando, for our first trip together. Once we'd cleared the causeway I rolled the throttle on, and the Maverick jumped out of the water and on plane. Ah-ha! It seemed the prop was the problem.

We headed out for another morning of big trout fishing, in the same general area as the day before. But, the fish had other ideas. They weren't in much of an eating mood. We found the fish, but instead of a hot bite, we had a slower, steady bite. Don and David caught lots of beautiful trout, and both said it was the best fishing they'd ever done. Later, we again went for flounder and caught more trout and several flounder. The total trout count was about the same as the previous day, and the boys brought two limits home to feed the family. It was another great day, but I wasn't happy with the Maverick. After thinking I had the prop problem licked, I again had the same problem of bogging down when trying to get going, for the rest of the day. Obviously, something was up with the motor. Probably a fuel delivery problem. The odd thing is that it idled fine, and ran out fine once I got it up on plane. Well, she'd have to get me through one or two more days before I could do anything about it!

Friday was an awesome day with my old friend Bruce Boardman, of St. Claire Shores, Michigan, and his best friend Bill. I hadn't seen Bruce in a couple of three years or so, and hadn't met Bill, before. They've done a lot of fishing together, and been out with quite a few guides in this area in years past.

As we cleared the causeway that morning, the Maverick seemed to be running perfectly as I shot the juice to her. She jumped out and we were off. Humm! Intermittent problem, for sure. I hate those. It was blowing pretty well, but the Maverick handled the rough water with relative ease. It has a very respectable ride for a 17 ft. modified vee hull flats skiff. It's not a soft a ride as the Talon, but pretty darned good. And, dry!

We returned to the same general area once again, but I chose a totally different series of potholes to fish. They were larger holes than I usually fish. The wind made it impossible to float along on the tide until we found fish, and I was forced to Power-Pole, fish, move, etc. I took maybe forty minutes to get the first hit, but once we found them, we found them big time.

For the rest of the morning, Bruce and Bill were like kids in a candy store. They couldn't believe the quantity and quality of the trout. They also loved fishing those trout on my Stella 2500 FA/St. Croix Legend Tournament rods. They caught countless trout that were at five pounds, and plenty three pounds and more. We hit one spot where we caught some smaller fish, but for the most part it was big trout. By the time we were done, the boys had racked up a total of 80 or more trout, catching them two and three at a time all morning long. We topped that with one flounder.

It was a great day of fishing with Bruce and Bill, and the Maverick ran fine all day long until we left to head home. Again, it bogged down, and didn't want to go. I had to use the tabs to get her on plane. Danny seems to think it's something simple, and I'm sure that by Monday evening he'll have her sorted out and running fine.

I'm not sure yet what the disposition of the Talon is. The fuel tank fabricator is on vacation until Monday, but his office said he has a technique for welding aluminum tanks in the boat that he has used many times. Humm. To say the least he's very brave, and is either very good or very stupid. I hope it's the former. I have decided that if the tank can't be welded in-boat, I'm going to leave it as is, and run on the right-side tank. The only other option is to have the cap removed to access removal of the tank, and that's a very long, expensive proposition. I still have a good tank, and although I will only have half the range, it seems a much more viable option for now. Might as well wait until I have a problem that forces the removal of the cap! Hopefully, the tank can indeed be repaired in the boat. We'll see.

I had a trip scheduled for today, Saturday, with a customer I've fished before. The trip was to be for two anglers, but last night I got an email from them saying there would be a third. In the Talon it wouldn't be an issue. But, the Maverick does not benefit from the massive front deck of the Talon. I really can't imagine trying to do a skinnywater, trip using artificial bait with three anglers and myself aboard. There's just not enough deck, and I'm not sure I would have even been able to get through the inches of water to the potholes with four people aboard. Then there's the issue of the extra weight. I don't think I'd have been able to get her up on plane with another angler aboard, with the motor acting up. I told my folks we couldn't take a third person, and they of course, canceled. Obviously they found someone who could accommodate their party of three!

So, three trips was it for the week. What a great week of fishing with great folks it was! There are currently three trips on tap for next week. But, the tides are pretty funky, so who knows how it will go. Find out next week.

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