Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
April 9, 2005
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEN ENDING 4/9/05 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Tuesday was my first day on the water of the week, and my first trip with Tina Luick, and her son, Dale, down from Michigan. She introduced Dale as a kid that absolutely loved to fish. I hoped I could measure up.

We headed straight out to Picnic Island for bait, and were done in three or four throws. We headed up into the Sound, and I decided to make trout the first target, since neither Tina nor Dale had ever done this kind of fishing. The first hole we parked on was the charm, and the trout bite was crazy. the fish were on as soon as the baits hit the water. We caught a load of trout. a flounder, and a couple of ladyfish, before we left, and could have filled the well with a double limit of keepers. But, Tina only wanted a couple of fish for dinner.

Now that Tina and Dale were more familiar with the equipment and getting the hang of using circle hooks, it was time to move on to snook fishing. Everywhere we went, we were on snook, but the snook wouldn't eat. Instead, they would just mouth the bait in place and never move it, and when you reeled in you'd find it half scaled and not very frisky. Finally, Dale managed to hook and land one snook, and Tina had one on, but let it get away. We were only a redfish away from the Slam, and it was time to shift gears to redfish.

We headed to an area that always heats up with big redfish action this time of year to see if we could find some. Water conditions didn't allow me to make a visual sighting of a school, so I just chose some good looking ground and went to work chumming and preparing ladyfish as baits. It wasn't long before we had our first red on! I had two rigs spread to the sides with steaked ladyfish and Dale was manning a live shiner under a cork down the middle. We were at about the top of the tide, but had some action for a while and wound up with 6 or 7 reds on the ladyfish, and a big jack crevalle on the shiner to finish the day. Tina and Dale had their Slam.

I did some housecleaning and dumped our bait to feed the fish, and we headed for home. It had been a great day with great folks, and we had been blessed with good weather.

Wednesday was a pretty awesome day with Keith Anderson, of Lehigh Acres, and his friend Darrell, of Port Charlotte. We didn't get off to a great start, as Keith was a half hour late. Timeliness is next to Godliness! It's my major peeve!

We headed straight to Picnic Island flats, where there was a fleet of at least twenty boats, all trying to catch bait. I'm sure most of them had been there since sun-up. I told Keith and Darrell that I love to be the last one on the bait flats, and the first one gone! It took us twenty minutes to gather a ton of bait, with the help of Darrell chumming, and we were gone fishing. Most of the fleet was still there when we left. Keith was shocked that I got bait in twenty minutes, saying that it usually took him two to three hours!!

I'm not much for meat fishing, although I won't deny my clients keeping what Florida laws allow. Yes, I'd like to see most of our fish go back to fight another day, but I don't force it down peoples' throats. Well, Keith had made it clear that he wanted to keep everything he could keep, because he wanted to have a big fish-fry for family and friends. So, I decided that trout would be the first order of the day.

We headed up into the Sound, and settled on the first hole. We already had a pretty brisk breeze, which made it hard for me to get the right combination of current and breeze to set the Talon how I wanted her. But, after a couple of adjustments, we were fine, and Keith and Darrell caught a bunch of trout. I think we put about 6 keepers in the well, there.

We moved to the second hole in search of larger trout and snook. We only got a snook or two, but got some more big trout, a ladyfish, and three nice flounder. It was a big hole, and we worked it over pretty well, but the snook were up to their usual kill strike routine, and virtually every bait we tossed there was smacked by a snook.

At the next stop there was no action. Oh, every bait we tossed had also gotten blasted and was scaled, but we caught no snook. We moved on.

At the third stop up toward the middle of the Sound, we hit some great snook. The first one was a great 30 inch fish that gave one hell of a light tackle fight. She weighed 9 pounds, only because the snook haven't had a chance to fatten up, yet. Shortly afterward, Darrell hooked another big snook, but it immediately took him into the bush, and eventually cut the leader. Darrell was totally wired after that.

The next spot farther north into the Sound gave us a few more snook. But, the action wasn't as fast as I was looking for, and we moved on after a half hour, or so. Our next stop was a favorite of mine in the north end of the Sound, but the southeast wind direction made it difficult to impossible to fish it. So, we moved on. But, before we left Keith hooked a stingray that gave him fits for quite a while. He had a blast with that ray!

I had a couple of spots cued up in my mental computer for the southerly wind. We headed back south, and finally reached our destination. Keith was just amazed at how the Talon handled the chopped up waters. There was a boat on the east side of the island we were going to fish. I made a wide swath around the island, and came in from the west. The combination of wind and current made is necessary for me to move the Talon twice before I was satisfied.

It wasn't long before we had action. The boys caught redfish and trout to 5 pounds, the biggest trout Keith had ever caught. But, the highlight of the day came when a stingray and a large fish showed up right of the port side of the Talon, and Darrell dropped a bait on the fish. Boom! The fish ate the bait, and took off for Taiwan. Actually, it didn't make a big run at first. I could see the fish, but in the five feet deep water, I couldn't see well. I looked at first glance like a nurse shark of around 4 to 5 feet in length.

But, soon I got a better look, and began thinking it might be a big cobia. But, it hadn't taken off like a bat out of hell, so I wasn't sure. I told Darrell that nurse sharks were pretty docile, and didn't fight much, and that cobia were curious and inquisitive, and often would eat a bait, and not fight until they realized something wasn't quite right. Darrell got the fish close enough to the boat for me to make a positive ID, and it was indeed a cobia. But, the big ling had other ideas, and soon took off like a rocket for Mexico. Darrell had watched me beat down a big snook earlier in the day with the light tackle, and I had shown him some of the tricks of the trade. He knew it could be done. But, we were in open water, and no tricks were necessary. I cautioned him to just let the fish run, and we would chase it, instead of putting big-time pressure on it with the equipment. And, chase we did. My MinnKota trolling motor wouldn't keep up with the fish. It wasn't long before the 200 plus yards of Power Pro were gone, and Darrell was into the mono backing. Yikes! I cranked the big Yamaha and got a little speed, so that Darrell could get Power Pro back onto the Stella 2500. Well, after much excitement, the passing of about twenty-five minutes, and about 3/4 of a mile ride, we got the fish to the boat, and it was a 28 pound cobie. What a great fish, and great way to end the day.

Once we got back to the ramp and went about cleaning the fish, the boys must have felt kind of like rock stars! Everyone was going gaga over the cobia, snook, reds, and big trout. It had been a great day, even with the finicky snook, and we had a blast. After I took my cut of the fish, which consisted of the flounder, from which I make sashimi, and a couple of pieces of snook, the boys still had 6 gallon sized zip-lock bags full of fish!! What a day!!

I could hear my wind chimes ringing all through the night. They're usually noisiest on a south wind. It had been pretty breezy Wednesday, and the forecast was for higher wind today. South to 25 MPH, in fact! It was started early! Perhaps the south wind would generate a good bite.

I met my customer, Jim Dimond, whom I hadn't seen in three years, and as soon as I saw him the memories came flooding back. We'd had a great snook trip before, and he's a super guy. He explained that his wife had opted out of the trip because of the wind that had been howling all night. And, it was probably a good decision on her part. It was really blowing.

We had two routes we could take to get to Picnic Island; outside the causeway and under the second span, or down the river and up Miserable Mile. I knew the outside route would be double ugly with the strong south wind, so we turned right as we left the ramp and took off down the river. It was just getting light, and visibility wasn't great, yet. Just as I got to speed we hit a section of the river where the bottom comes up shallower, and it pushes the strong tidal water up. When you have the wind racing in the opposite direction as the tide, you get some very nasty swells. We were in the air two or three times before I decided I better back down a bit before I scared Jim half to death. Once we got through that section, the rest of the ride was OK to Picnic.

The fleet was there, and had been for some time; everyone chumming for bait. We eased in on the MinnKota, and took up position, and began chumming. Three throws of the castnet had us loaded up, and I pulled the Power Pole to let us drift off the fleet while I was swabbing the decks.

I usually like to begin with trout fishing, especially if my customers haven't done this kind of fishing before, or if they only get to do it once a year. It had been a while for Jim, and he'd never used circle hooks, so the trout would be the best way to get used to everything all over. We had great action at the first stop, and Jim predictably had a hard time trying not to strike, as he is used to doing. It just won't work with the circle hook. All that is required is to reel until you're tight to the fish, and if the hook is in the fish's mouth, he's hooked. We joked about having to graduate from Trout School before moving on to snook and redfish, but Jim soon had his degree, and we moved on.

At the second stop we caught more nice trout, but only a couple of snook. We got a lot of snook hits we couldn't feel, once again. It seemed that perhaps the fish had eaten the day before and through the night on the big south wind, and may have full tummies. We moved on.

After a couple of moves with little going on, I decided to head north to a spot I used to fish years ago, but hadn't fished in some time. I was close to the spot where we had gotten on the big snook the day before. We had action immediately. The first fish was a redfish, but we knew Jim had missed some great snook hits. Eventually, Jim did get some snook out of the hole, and got his snook and redfish degrees. I wanted to move to the hole I just mentioned, but someone was fishing close enough to it that I didn't want to disturb them getting in there, or fish it with them watching.

We moved on, and I decided to check out a spot I had noticed a few days prior while running. It was a beautiful looking spot where a deep little finger channel ran out off the end of a small mangrove key. It had snook written all over it. But, in the tannin stained water I couldn't tell that when I sat down was very shallow, and the Talon wasn't floating with both of us in the boat. I got out to push the Talon closer to the hole, only to discover that I was sinking half way up my calves in the soft muck. Jim got out, and with the Talon now floating, we were able to move her up to within casting distance of the hole.

But, too my surprise, I quickly found that the high speed pickup for the baitwell was plugged up with much, and I knew it was only precious minutes before all our bait was dead. I instructed Jim back out of the boat telling him the situation as we went. We HAD to move quickly to save our bait. We got the Talon to the edge of the hole and jumped back in. I fired her up, and took off, running her up to about 50 MPH, to try to blow the muck on through the pickup. After a mile of running, I stopped to check the well. The water was once again flowing, and we were back in business! Guess I'll have to approach that hole from another angle, next time.

It seemed each stop was only good for a few fish. We headed back south eventually, and stopped to check a spot I like for redfish. I chummed and put out ladyfish, cut threadfin, and a live shiner under a cork. Before long, Jim had a nice red in the boat. We worked the hole until the catfish came in and took over eating our cut baits.

I decided to move across the Sound to the Sanibel side, and knew that we could get out of a little bit of the wind there, and the ride home would be much more pleasant from there, as well. We just had to get across. The easiest way, albeit not necessarily the driest, was to run all the way back down to Chino Island, and then make the crossing at the narrowest point with the wind coming across our port side. That gave us the smoothest ride, but we did get wet! Jim said it was a good thing his wife had stayed home, as she wouldn't have been happy out in this mess.

Our crossing was worth it, as we managed to catch more redfish and snook, a couple here, and couple there, and plugged away at them until it became apparent that the bite was over. So, we finished the day with 12 to 14 snook, 6 or 7 redfish, a couple of flounder, a jack crevalle, a big stingray. and bunches of speckled trout. Jim hadn't caught any monster snook as he'd done on his first trip, but we'd had a great time, and I was sure we'd done as well as anyone else.

I was scheduled to fish with my old friends Rod and Judy Heflin, now permanently of Pine Island, on Friday, but I knew as well as I know my name, that the fishing would be tough at best, and non-existent at worst. I called Rod and gave him my take on the situation, and suggested we reschedule. There was absolutely no reason for us to go out there knowing it would be tough fishing, when he is local. We'd go another day.

As it worked out, we spend the day together, anyway. I told Rod I'd been pulling my hair out trying to install a Bluetooth Wireless Printer Adapter on my printer, so that I could print from my laptop anywhere in the house. I had two days invested, and couldn't make it work. I was just chasing my tail, with some of the worst installation instructions I have ever seen provided by a manufacturer. Poor English and three pages of "screen prints" with much critical information omitted, had me frustrated beyond belief. Rod volunteered to come over and try his hand at it, and he's one sharp cooked and knows his way around Windows and Linux.

Well, you guessed it. After watching Rod try everything in his bag of tricks, which included some things I hadn't done, he reached the same conclusion. The stuff was awful and should be sent back to MobilePlanet, in California for a refund. Although it was exasperating, I was good to spend the day with Rod and Judy, and I truly appreciate that he tried his hardest to help me out.

And, that was it. We've got a full week next week, and it's a week of mostly late tides. They'll be nice high tides, though, and I'm thinking they'll be good for fishing those redfish I love so much. Stay tuned.

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