Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
March 27, 2005
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 3/26/05 by Capt. Butch Rickey

I had six trips scheduled when the week began, but of course, Mother Nature once again got in the way!

The week began on Sunday with Pat Kolata. She and her husband Dr. Ron Kolata are long time friends, and I just love them, and love fishing with Ron. Pat doesn't come along most of the time. We've been fishing together for a long time, and when they come down, we usually get together at their condo, and Pat makes some of the most wonderful food you ever put into your mouth. My favorite is her stone crab dip. My God! It's to die for. Ron and Pat are too fun, and I just love when they come down.

This time, Pat was down working on some real estate investment deals, and Ron was in California on business. She had been down in Key West working on a deal, and then came up to Ft. Myers to work on another deal. She took the Key West Express, which is a fun ride, and I picked her up at Salty Sam's Marina when she arrived Thursday night. She wanted to go out on a no pressure, relaxing, instructional type fishing trip, and wasn't too concerned about whether she caught a bunch of fish, or not. Sunday was our day, as she was flying out on Monday.

In the meantime, Russ Hubbard, one of my dearest friends and fishing buddies, called and told me he had an old, old friend in town from Colorado, whom he had know since he was young college student in California. He wanted to know if I could muster a day to take him and his friend, Cutler fishing. Since I didn't have a day, I suggested the next best thing; he could take the Maverick out on Sunday while Pat and I were fishing. Russ has been fishing all his life, and is a very adept boat handler, so I wasn't at all worried about him taking the Maverick without my supervision. We've fished together for many years, now, and he knows how I like things from launch to cleanup. So, Russ and Cut stayed at the fishcamp Saturday night, and we were all up and at it at around five o'clock.

Once we were all in the water Sunday morning, we headed to Tarpon Bay for bait. It looked like the whole fleet was there. Russ, who has a very bad back, and in fact had just had surgery, stayed just outside the manatee buoys, while Pat and I went in to catch bait. Pat was just thrilled about having to help with the chumming, but she's a good sport, and did such a good job that we had two boatloads of bait in three or four throws. We idled back out to Russ and Cut and gave them some bait, and bid them farewell.

As Pat and I made the approach to our first stop I spotted a school of what appeared to be very big jack crevalle chasing bait around in about a foot of water. They were moving fast, as usual, and we could only hope that they would come to within casting distance of the Talon. I was in a frantic hurry to get the boat properly anchored to fish our spot, get a hook baited and ready for Pat, and all the while keep my eye on the school of big jacks.

In my haste to get to the trolling motor, I stepped into the open anchor locker, and down I went in a hard fall. For a moment I thought me, my Stella 2500, and my car alarm keypad were in the drink. I stayed in the boat, but I just tore up my left leg. I did have on a pair of long Hook and Tackle slacks, and they kept the damage minimized. I'm still nursing a serious lump on my shin, and I peeled the hide off the back of my left heel! I felt like an idiot as I was proving that haste makes waste!! As I got up and got my composure we suffered the final indignation as several big jacks, every bit of three feet long, swam right within five feet of the boat as if just to taunt us. Damn! Opportunity missed. If only I could have gotten Pat hooked up to one of those monster jacks. She'd still have sore arms!

Well, once we got over than and got down to fishing our spot, we found it was full of ladyfish and big trout. Pat caught several of each, but the snook weren't cooperating, so after working the area over well, we moved on.

At the next stop we found our snook, and Pat caught several snook and trout. What had been a no pressure day suddenly became a day of protecting her honor, as all we needed for Pat to go home and tell Ron she'd gotten a West Coast Slam was a redfish. We just HAD to get her a redfish!

So, off we went into the wild blue yonder in search of the bronze torpedo! And, boy did I find them! I found a school that must have numbered 500 fish. Now that I'd found them I was certain I could get at least one of them, and hopefully a bunch of them, to eat some fillets from the two ladyfish we'd kept. I went to work. The fish ignored my offerings, pretty much. We did get two good strikes, but somehow the reds failed to get hooked by the Owner circle hooks we were using. Damn! They're usually so reliable! After several moves of about the distance of a cast, we decided to move on, and try for reds on another flat.

At the next stop it was more of the same, except that Pat had several big fish on, and lost them to broken leader. We thought! On about the third big fish, we realized that the two previous ones had been sharks that had managed to cut through the 40 pound leader before she could get them to the boat! Oh, well. They were fun for Pat, and good for her to practice her "pump and reel" technique!

As the tide came to a stop we called it a day. But, it wasn't quite over. Early that evening Pat called and told me she'd left her tiny little cellphone in my Pelican Box. So, she came by the fishcamp to retrieve it, and get in one more visit, and got to meet Russ and Cutler. It was fun!

I had my first trip with Randy Byers, his son John, and daughter Kristen, on Monday. Randy lives in Pembroke Pines, over near Ft. Lauderdale, but was born and raised over here on this coast. He owns a home in Cape Coral that he uses as a vacation home, and rents it out. Randy told me he was a big fan of my fishing reports, so I sure wanted to try to live up to his expectations.

It was howling out of the south again, as it had been the day before with Pat. There was yet another big front on it's way to us. We headed to Tarpon Bay for bait, and were loaded up in three or four throws of my castnet. After a quick cleanup, we headed north into the Sound. I decided then and there to stay on the east side, to try to stay out of the worst of the wind that was just east of south.

At the first stop we were immediately on a pretty good big trout bite, and for the rest of the day every trout the Byers gang caught brought comments about their size. They also caught a couple of snook and some really fat flounder at that first stop.

Once it slowed there we moved on to the second spot, and there the Byers caught some snook, one grouper, and more trout. WE also made a stop or two that didn't produce anything. We were two thirds of the way to a West Coast Slam, and I asked if they'd like to try for redfish. I had a spot in mind that usually has very big redfish show up about this time of year, and we were off after everyone agreed to the plan.

I rigged one outfit with a Cajun float, and prepared some sliced and diced chum, and some cut pinfish. The cut pinfish produced a few more outsized trout and a catfish, or two, and the shiner I had under the float and in John's hands produced two very big strikes. Neither one connected, but I know those were redfish strikes by the way they hit. It's funny how a big redfish seems to instinctively know that a live shiner might get away and will smash it with a vengeance, but will just pick up a cut bait off the bottom and leisurely swim off with it! They do know!

We finished at a favorite big snook spot of mine, but were too late on the tide. The water was dead in the water, so to speak. As I remember, Kristen caught a nice trout, and John and Randy both caught a couple of big jacks. It hadn't been a stellar day, but it was a good and fun day with a really great family. And, the kids enjoyed the ride home! The strong south wind blowing at least 25 MPH, had things really stirred up in front of St. James City. Add big wakes from an armada of passing big yachts, and we had some rough water. Well, I screwed up and slowed down too much for one of the monster wakes (always a mistake in the Talon), and stuffed the bow of the Talon, putting a big sheet of water over the bow. We all took water in the face, and the kids thought it was fun!

My good friend John Hitt and I were to fish on Tuesday. Monday night we discussed the weather, and decided to make the call in the morning. John was understandably not anxious to get out and get beat to death in a strong south wind. The next morning I checked radar and called John. It didn't look too bad, and the wind seemed to be down. John decided we'd go for it! I got to his dock around 7:30, and began to get things ready.

Soon, we were headed down the river towards Tarpon Bay for bait. Another Captain was just finishing up, and invited us to take his spot, where there would presumably be plenty of bait. We were loaded up quickly, once we realized there was a pretty strong under-current that was sweeping our chum away pretty quickly.

Our last couple of trips together had been really slow, due to poor tides and lousy weather. I had hopes that things would be different on this day. After getting set up on the first hole, we immediately had a hot bite. But, John and I were both cold. For all the bites, our fancy equipment, and circle hooks, we were having a hell of a time getting a hook into a fish. The snook were making us feel silly.

But, we were not to be denied. We kept after them, and soon have a few in the boat. The best was just a hair under the 26 inch limit. We also had some nice trout, and 3 flounder. As things slowed there, I decided to fish a hole nearby that is almost always full of big trout, since John loves to trout fish. It's a funny hole, because it's probably 100+ feet long and only about 15 feet wide. The wind direction and tide pulling on the Coastline were making it a bit difficult to get our baits to the far side of the hole, but we managed, and soon found that it was full of nice trout. And John, skilled angler that he is, was showing off when he caught one of the biggest pinfish I've ever seen on a shiner, caught a hardhead catfish on a jig, and also caught the trout of the day on the same jig! Show-off!

The next stop, usually full of snook this time of year, netted us nothing, but only an eight of a mile away at a nearby oyster bar, we got into snook. But, right in the middle of our bite, the strong south wind blew us off our Power Pole anchor. We got control of the boat, and re-anchored, this time with a real anchor as insurance. We caught a few more snook, but folks, the wind was still creeping us up on the hole!! It was howling pretty good!

We tried one other spot, as I recall, without anything other than a catfish, and called it a day. The weather seemed to be degenerating. We had a double limit of big trout in the baitwell, and were headed for home. It had been a pretty good day, and we finished with at least a dozen snook. lots of trout, and the three flounder. And, since it wasn't blowing as badly as it had been on Monday, the ride home was not too bad.

I woke up Wednesday morning and fired up my zd7000 HP laptop before I was even out of bed. I wanted to see where the big mass of rain and storms was that was approaching south Florida. The leading edge was at around Sarasota, and it spread as far north as Ocala. It seemed to be moving slowly. I got prepped, and headed to the ramp. Things seemed normal when I arrived and put the Talon in the water. But, by the time I parked the van and went to the restroom, I came outside to a thick fog. I couldn't believe it. As I hung around the dock waiting on my customers, Carl Murray Sr. and Jr., I watched as some of the guides braved the fog, and others stayed at the dock. We were keeping track of the weather via phone calls. The fog seemed to be thickening, and the weather people moved the arrival of our storms up to 10:00 AM. It no longer seemed to make sense to wait on the fog to lift. By the time it did, the storms would be on us, IF the weather guys were right. Carl and I agreed to try again on Thursday and went home.

As I worked on the computer and watched the radar, it became apparent they were wrong. As it turned out, the weather didn't arrive until around three o'clock. We could have run our trip, but what's done was done. The storms and some vicious winds stayed with us well into the evening. What a March this has been!

Thursday morning the Carls Murray, Carl Sr. and his ten year old son, Carl Jr., were right on time, and ready to go fishing. There wasn't a whisper of air moving, which seemed odd after all the big wind we'd had the night before. We headed to Tarpon Bay on slick water to catch bait.

Once there we situated the Talon on a patch of bottom in the general area that I usually do well on. But, after chumming for a while, we had only about three or four pinfish. After a few minutes, my friend Capt. Bruce Ringsmuth, who was about 50 yards away, asked me it the bait was coming. I told him we hadn't seen any shiners, yet, and he invited me to come in on the bait he had chummed up, as he was ready to leave. That was a very nice gesture, and it made catching bait in three throws very easy. Thanks, Bruce!

As we headed into the Sound the tide was still falling. I scanned my mental computer for falling tide spots, spring, full moon, etc., and decided on a series of holes near Galt Island. By the time we arrived, the tide was already about done moving, and we only managed a ladyfish lost, a big trout, and a catfish. We had a couple of snook hits, but didn't convert.

We used the slack water to move to our next spot, which over the years has been one of my favorite places to be this time of year when the tide first starts in. We had a very slight easterly breeze, but not enough to help us with our casting. Boy, you don't realize how much you rely on a 10 knot breeze, or so to help with casting those little shiners until you don't have it. Anyway, we caught some very nice trout, a flounder, and had some snook hits, but didn't connect to a single snook while we were there.

We moved on to a series of two oyster bars that have been giving me good snook action, but not today. I had told Carl that if we fished the day after the front passed, it would be tough, and it was coming to past. We headed north to Benedict Key, where my chum produced several snook hits, and the first shiner I tossed into the water got smacked. I missed the fish!! There wasn't another hit.

We moved to a nearby key and chummed the nearby potholes, and got several blows on the chum. The first shiner in got smacked, again, but I guess I was just in too big a hurry to get a hooked snook into one of my customers' hands. Another miss! Finally, Carl Jr. caught a keeper redfish, that he was very happy with.

We took a ride to the Sanibel side of the Sound, and began with fishing a series of potholes for snook. We had several hits, but Carl Jr. got the only snook to the boat. He now had his West Coast Slam. After a while with no action we moved on. The next stop produced a couple of redfish, and more outsized trout, but no more snook.

By this time the tide was about to run out of steam, and we made one last move in an attempt to find some more redfish action. The action wasn't there on the reds, but Carl Sr. did hook a nice blacktip shark, and get it almost to the boat before it cut the leader. The last fish of the day was a beautiful four pound trout that ran down a piece of cut pinfish as it was being reeled in. Imagine that!

I guess the trip went about as well as could be expected after such a big weather event. Carl Sr. said they'd caught way more fish than they ever catch on their own when they're here, and Carls Jr. said he had a great time. I know I had a blast with them both, especially teasing Carl Jr.

I approached the ramp early Friday morning with more than just a little trepidation. It was Good Friday. A Holiday. I got to the ramp an hour before my friends Chic and John Bruning, just to be sure I had a place to park. The ramp was a busy as I've ever seen it on a Friday with people launching boats as fast as the congestion and confusion would allow. As I waited on them to arrive, I thought of all the reasons the fish would probably not eat: it was the night of the full moon and the fish would have full bellies, it was Good Friday and there would be a zillion boats out there running over every patch of fishing ground, it was the second day after the passing of a major front, the water is still too cold, we've had red tide until just the last few days, etc., etc.

I hadn't seen Chic and John since June of 2001, yet Chic was one of the very first to participate in my hurricane fund by sending a check in advance payment of a trip. I recognized John immediately as they came strolling down the dock, but Chic was wearing a fishing hat that pretty well hid him, and I wouldn't have known him if I'd passed him on the street. But, as soon as I saw Chic and John, fond memories came rushing to the forefront, and I recalled having a great time with them back in '01. I only hoped I could pull a rabbit out of my hat and put them on some fish this time.

We headed off to Tarpon Bay to catch bait. I could see a fleet of boats chumming at Picnic Island, over at St. James Creek, and at Tarpon Bay. We took up a position and began chumming. It wasn't long before I could see shiners flashing of the port side of the Talon, and made my first throw. To my surprise, we couldn't get the bait wadded up tight so that we could catch a bunch of it in a couple of throws. We caught two or three dozen each throw, and after eight or ten throws, were loaded up with shiners and pinfish.

My beginning strategy was to go and stake a claim on a spot before the armada of flats boats caught their bait and covered up the Sound. There is a place that I love to be this time of year when the tide first kicks and begins to come in. I wanted to be there. As we approached the area, I could see that we were first. There were no other boats. Now, all that was left to chance was whether the snook would eat, or not.

They didn't! Much to my chagrin. But, the big trout did! The guys told me that they had about 20 people to feed fish, but fortunately not all of them ate fish. It was still a pretty good order, so I figured it would be a good plan for us to get the meat portion of the trip done with trout. Even if they both caught keeper snook and keeper reds, they wouldn't come close to feeding 20 people! So, we stayed with the trout bite, and quickly had two limits of big trout just under the top of the slot, in the well. In fact, we had three fish over twenty inches in the well, as well as a nice flounder. But, we just couldn't get the snook to eat. We had lots of baits come back to the boat with that tell-tale snook bite on them, but they just weren't eating. I wasn't surprised, and in fact, it was exactly what I expected on the full moon. I figured we'd have to wait until the last hours of the incoming tide before they would think about eating.

We moved on, and at the next two stops we caught snook. And, more trout. We had a couple that were just under the 26 inch limit, but no keepers in the boat. We pushed on northward, and finally settled on a spot that I always do well at when the tide is up. By this time, the strong south wind had the tide up ahead of schedule, and I was hopeful we would find more snook willing to eat. We were fishing shiners freelined on our light tackle rigs. But, we weren't catching much. I wondered to myself if in all the wind and choppy water, we were making too much noise. I decided to attach Cajun floats which would allow me to get the baits much farther down the shoreline from our position.

The first cast was a hole in one! So was the second. Putting the baits far away from the boat seemed to be the ticket. Chic and John caught more snook, and of course, we finally hit the keeper we were after. We fished until the bite was over, hoping to entice a redfish for the Slam, but the red never came. It was getting late on the tide at this point, and we decided to head in the general direction of home and hit a couple of spots along the way. The boys caught more big trout, but no more snook or reds. Finally, the guys were nice enough to allow me to leave a few minutes early so we could hopefully beat the inevitable traffic jam at the ramp. And, we also had a mess of fish to clean.

We didn't kill the fish all morning long, but we had a great day. The boys ended the day with several dozen nice trout, 12 to 15 snook, and the flounder. We had also missed a lot of snook hits. As we made the bumpy ride home, I thought about how I'd felt at the beginning of the morning, and how I felt now. And, I realized that the quality of a fishing trip is not only measured in terms of the quality of the catch, but in large part the quality of the company. The company had been great, and so had the trip. Thank you Chic and John for a great day!

Saturday morning dawned calm and quiet. I headed over to John Hitt's dock and began to get things ready before John showed up. It was overcast, but calm. What a nice change from all the wind we've had. John and I headed down the river optimistic, but knowing that soon there would be boats everywhere. The waterways would look like a giant freeway traffic jam before day's end.

As we passed Picnic Island we saw probably thirty boats there trying to catch bait. We headed on to Tarpon Bay, where the bait had been so good. As we made a slow, quiet approach on the Minn Kota, I noticed that the usual crew of guide boats were moving around. I told John that wasn't good, because it meant they weren't catching bait where they were. We set up on my favorite patch of grass and went to work. We chummed for some time, and I threw the net several times. But we only caught a few small pins. I reasoned that if I was a baitfish, I would be sick and tired of all the boats running over me, and fishermen throwing nets over me, and go somewhere else. Where?

One this is for sure. I've been seeing bait in the water practically everywhere I fish. It's amazing. So, I thought like a fish, and decided on where to go. As we approached the next area there were already two boats in the area, but they were both trout fishing. There was no one trying to catch bait. We began our chumming ritual, again, and within just a few minutes could see shiner flashing in the tannin stained water. Bingo. After two or three throws, we had more bait than we could ever possibly use, and were off.

John loves to trout fish, especially when they're big trout. He also loves to eat trout, so I asked John if he wanted to start the day with catching food. The smile on his face told me the answer before he spoke. I knew we had a shot a getting to one of my favorite trout hole in the early spring because so many boats were still behind us trying to catch bait. There were also a lot of boat already fishing. The were virtually everywhere, but they were the weekend warriors who are probably buying shrimp, or perhaps using lures.

I took the helm of the big Coastline as we approached the area, and went in as I had done thousands of times. But, I forgot that I wasn't in the Talon, and that the low tide was not very low, and I over shot the hole, big time! Damn! Feeling certain I had only moved the fish to the far end of the hole I put the boat in position to fish the wind and current conditions we had, and began throwing some live chum. John put a line in the water, and it couldn't have been more than ten minutes before he had the first keeper trout in the well. We had our two limits of trout out of the first nine or ten fish.

John and I agreed that we would fish the trout until they quit biting. They were fun on the light rods we were carrying, and biting like crazy. John even put down his livebait rig and began tossing a jig. He caught quite a few that way, but they eventually tapered off. We continued to catch with shiners until that tapered off. There were no snook. Perhaps they had moved on when I blasted into the hole.

But, there were other holes very nearby that I hadn't fished in a long time, that all hold snook in the spring. We decided to stay right in that area and fish them since there were boats littering the waterscape in every direction. We caught more big trout, and a couple of big flounder, but no snook. We did have some baits come back to the boat with snook bites on them.

We moved a couple of miles to another place where I've been catching nice snook, and in fact John and I had a great bite going earlier in the week until the wind blew us off anchor. WE had a couple of fish on, but they seemed to shut down because there was so much boat traffic nearby. I noticed a nearby flat that I used to fish often years ago, was empty. We decided to go poke around there, and see if we could find a red or snook. We found more trout, but not enough action to keep us kids occupied. We moved on.

Our next stop was an oyster bar I generally fish only on a south or southwest wind. There was no one on it, but several guide boats nearby, and I suspected it might have already been fished in all this traffic. My first two or three baits were slammed hard, and I missed every one of them!! Guess I was in too big a hurry to get the rod into John's hands. After that it dried up, and we couldn't beg another bite.

It was getting late and near the end of the tide, but we were two thirds of the way to a Slam. I had one more spot I wanted to fish. I hadn't been there since probably last fall. When my old friend Mark Bess was guiding we used to fish this spot together and just kill the redfish. We fished our way in, which gave us a chance to fish more shoreline I hadn't fished in a long time. We caught one more snook and missed several. Finally, we were at our destination, and anchored. We had a pretty good breeze at our backs, and were trying to get our baits up into small pockets in the mangroves, while at the same time keeping our distance so as not to bother our fish.

When I finally got the first bait back into the hole, it was slammed immediately, but somehow, it got off after setting the hook twice. I knew the reds were there. Finally, we put a redfish in the boat and celebrated our Slam. Then came another nice slot fish. More misses. And, we caught some giant trout who were staged between us and the mangroves, and would run our baits down after the reds had chased them out of the bushes! These were five pound trout, and I could actually see them swimming in front of us like we weren't even there. That's most unusual since trout are one of the spookiest fish in our waters. That's why you never hear of anyone sight fishing for them.

We were finally forced to head in by the clock. John had to get to an early Easter service, we had fish and boat to clean, and a long, bumpy ride home through heavy boat traffic. All in all, it had been a great day, and there was no better way to end my week than with my friend John.

And, thanks to Chic Bruning's sister, who was the first to realize that we had booked Easter Sunday without realizing it, I have Easter off. Boy, what a zoo that would have been.

Here's hoping everyone has an enjoyable Easter Sunday, and that we all remember why this is the most important holiday on our calendars.

Until next week, tight lines!

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