Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
March 21, 2005
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 3/19/05 by Capt. Butch Rickey

What was to be a five day work week was reduced to two. Weather, tides, and mechanical bug-a-boos once again conspired!

I was to fish with my old friend Bill Chaney and a good friend of his on Monday. But, Pappy's wife had a stroke, and he was back in Ohio, and Bill couldn't find a replacement. I wasn't able to fill the day on short notice. But, I'd been having some shifter problems after having the cables replaced in the last week, and although I could probably have resolved the problem with a tie-wrap, I thought it best to take it back to Danny Fowler, and let him have a look. It wasn't anything he'd done wrong. It was one of those things that sometimes happen when you disturb things that have been in place for a long time. Danny quickly had it repaired, and everything works fine, now.

My Tuesday trip came about in a sad way. A week earlier my long time friend, Don Stiber, of Sarasota, who by the way owns OutboardParts.com that is always at the bottom of the fishing reports page, called and told me his wife Judith had finally succumbed to cancer after a long, hard seven year struggle. For those seven years his life had been working and taking care of Judith. He was in much need of a day to unwind and relax and forget about everything, and had asked me if we could possibly get his daughter Stephanie and her boyfriend Ryan, son Philip, and him all out for a day of fishing. I suggested we take the fleet, with him at the helm of the Maverick, and thought it would be a lot more fun for him, as well. Don and I had fished together for years back before I was even guiding, and had shared many fun and crazy times on the water. We had fished, broken down, run out of gas in a thunderstorm, and explored lots of areas together. We always had fun, and I knew this would be no different. So, the plans were made.

Tuesday morning seasonal and spring break traffic had Don and the gang running late. And, of course, trying to get everyone going and get two boats fueled, iced, and in the water was somewhat of an ordeal. But, eventually we did, and were on our way. I stopped at the first span of the causeway to try to catch bait, and Don and Philip played with the boat nearby. There was no bait to be seen, so after thinking I had Don's attention to let him know to follow me, we headed over to the second span, where with Ryan at the helm we were able to load up with tons of shiners and threadfins.

We had been watching for Don to show up as we worked the bait, but he never showed. We tried raising him on the walkie-talkies he'd brought along, but that wasn't working. We drove back to the first span expecting to find him still there, but he was nowhere to be seen. Finally, we were able to raise him on the cellphone, and he said he was somewhere in the Bay! He was nowhere within our sight, so we told him to find his way back to the second span of the causeway where he would find us waiting. Eventually, after another call or two, he showed up, and we headed off into the Sound together after giving him some bait.

After arriving at our first stop I instructed Don to set up on a hole about a 100 yards away from us. But, Don was apparently having too much fun playing with the boat and it's toys, and never did stop at the designated hole. Instead he explored a nearby shoreline on the trolling motor while Stephanie, Ryan and I, caught fish. The kids were having fun catching and missing snook.

Eventually, we moved to several other spots in search of more snook action, always keeping Don in sight. We weren't slaying the snook, but having a good day. We finally settled on a spot that is usually full of snook, and did catch a few, but the bonanza was one of the most crazy big trout bites I've ever seen! My chum intended for snook (and the birds) seemed to turn them on and for the next couple of hours, Ryan and Stephanie caught speckled trout ranging from 3 to nearly 5 pounds just as fast as we could get our baits in the water. Stephanie was complaining through a big smile about her hand aching as she had the fishing time of her life reeling in one after another. We called Don several times trying to get him to come join us. He said he was catching some trout, but I knew by where and how he was fishing they weren't the big sows we were catching. I wanted him to get in on this hot bite before the tide and the bite came to a stop. Eventually, he did, and was just shocked at the size of the fish. But, all good things must come to an end, and it did. It was time to head in. We had gotten a late start, and had a half hour ride back to the dock and a load of fish to clean. It would be late by the time we were done and cleaned up. As we parted later that evening Don told me that the trip had been exactly the therapy he needed. I hope now that Don and I have gotten back on the water we can keep doing so. But, next time I'd like to have him in the boat with me!!

Wednesday was reserved for Dana Anderson, a friend I hadn't seen since before I bought the Talon. Dana lives in Cape Coral and has a new baby, and his father-in-law, Gerry came all the way from Montana to see his grandson, Benjamin. Dana wanted to get him out for a day of fishing while he was here, explaining that all he catches back in Montana are trout that are very small by our standards.

So, we met that morning and headed right over to the second span where there were many boats throwing around the pilings, but not much bait being caught. It was howling out of the south with winds forecasted to be 20 to 25 MPH, and I knew catching bait wouldn't be easy. But, Dana did a masterful job of positioning the Talon and holding her in position while I threw the net. We had to hit several of the new clusters of pilings before we found them, but once we did I loaded the well. I directed my buddy Rey Rodriguez to where we'd gotten our bait and headed up into the Sound thinking he would load up in a throw or two.

At our first stop we had snook and big trout action. But, the fishing was hard because the wind was really blowing. Every time I tried to chum the holes the birds seemed to pop out of thin air to eat them before the snook could get to them. But, we were catching. Gerry was having a blast catching snook and big trout, and couldn't believe how the snook fought. Of course, he had no idea he would be catching trout here, and the first one of the day at five pounds blew his mind.

We fished several spots throughout the course of the trip, and eventually went back to the scene of the big trout bite of the day before. We did catch some more trout there, but the school had either moved on, or had eaten so much the day before they were no longer interested. But, to that point we had caught lots of snook and trout, and Dana had the best snook at 28 inches. I wanted to finish with some redfish, but didn't know if I could get any to eat. The boys were definitely up for trying, though, and that would give them the Slam.

At the next spot we offered the redfish live shiners freelined and under Cajun floats. I chummed with live and chopped shiners. It was getting late in the tide, and the wind seemed to just keep getting stronger. You could see and feel the change of weather again in the air. It didn't take all that long to get the first redfish. Wasn't a big one, but a keeper. We missed another, and then boated a couple more before the catfish took over signaling the end of the tide. I was time to the ride home, right into the wind. I ran as close to the manatee buoys on the Sanibel side as I could, trying to stay in the lee as much as I could, and it kept us from the worst of the rough water. We got back to the ramp without getting beaten or wet. It had been a great day for Dana and Gerry.

We had a late evening shower that signaled the sure arrival of a very large weather system that had the northern half of Florida covered completely up. The radar was ugly, and it was moving slowly. I had hope that it would be late arriving on Thursday, so that Grant Frederixon and I could get our trip in. Grant called me very concerned about the approaching weather, and was very anxious to get out there and do some fishing. I told him we'd wait to make the call until the morning.

Well, when I checked the radar Thursday morning, the system was right on our doorstep, and I knew that yet another day was lost to the weather. Turned into a real weather event for us, here. We got around 5 inches of rain, which was more rain in one event than we had ever gotten during the whole month of March!! We needed rain! We got it!

I was too fish with my good friend John Hitt on Friday, but that morning John and I decided to postpone until the following Friday. I knew that even with perfect weather the fifteen hour tide we had to fish would be very tough, and that we wouldn't see much in the way of catching. Add the passing of such a big cold front on top of that miserable tide, and you have the recipe for another skunk. I didn't want that for John when we had the ability to reschedule to another day.

So, that's how a full work week can quickly become a short one. But, it was a fun one, nonetheless! I have another full week on tap next week. Maybe I'll get lucky and get to run them all.

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