Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
July 23, 2005
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 7/23/05 by Capt. Butch Rickey

It was a great week of renewing old friendships, and making new ones. I wound up with four trips for the week instead of five, and only one was with new folks. The fishing was pretty good for the dog days of summer, too.

I’ve been guiding for many years, but I am still learning, and probably always will be. One of my most recent revelations has been in the last couple years; that the fish act very similarly in the hottest part of summer to how they act in the coldest part of winter. Essentially, as the water heats during July and August, the fish grow lethargic, and don’t seem to want to burn a lot of energy to eat. That’s exactly how they act in the cold of winter. Baits have to be presented very slowly. Often artificial baits or cut baits will outfish anything alive. We witnessed some classic examples of that this week in the dark, hot waters on the flats, where more snook and redfish were caught on cut baits than on live baits, and the big trout were gobbling up jigs and DOA shrimp worked very slowly.

First up on Monday were Peter “Bernie” Burnand, and his grandson Sean, of Calgary, Canada. I have been corresponding with Sean since back in 2001, but this was the first time to meet him. I’ve fished with his grandfather Bernie and father Peter, though. So, I was looking forward to meeting Sean.

We met at 6:30, and headed into the Sound for bait. I hadn’t so much as seen a shiner in a while, and had decided to go further north to the area north of Flamingo Cut, where I often see schools of threadfins this time of year. Our first spot produced tons of pinfish, but not a single shiner. I decided to move back south to investigate some pelicans I saw diving as we passed by earlier. Their dives indicated to me they were diving on small bait. That’s why I had passed them by on the way north. But, I figured small shiners would be better than no shiners.

As I neared the area I saw pelicans still working the water and took up position. With Sean chumming, we quickly had a pretty good number of small shiners in the boat. Some were even large enough to cast without the aid of a popping cork. We were set to fish.

Our high tide was at around ten o’clock, which meant we’d have some dead time, and then be fishing a falling tide the last part of the morning. Not a scenario I’m particularly fond of, but what nature gave us. I headed to our first stop where I was surprised that we were greeted by closed mouths. Sean got one nice snook on a live pinfish under a popping cork. The reds didn’t eat.

We moved on, but once we settled on to our spot we didn’t move again. We were greeted with open mouths by both the reds and the snook. Sean and Bernie had a great time catching snook after redfish for the rest of the morning. I wasn’t one of those real “hot” bites where we’re catching fish three and four at a time, but it was a good steady bite.

During the heat of summer’s dog days you can be pretty sure that the fishing will be over by noon. The fish, if not driven like other factors like tide, will go on siesta as the water superheats. And, it’s over. Also, the weather becomes a factor, and can become downright dangerous, sometimes in a very short time.

Well, Sean and Bernie hung in until right around the noon hour, at which point we all decided we needed to eat. So, what better place to finish the day than the Waterfront Restaurant? Several lemonades and a cold seafood salad go a long way to restoring my vital signs in the heat of July. We had a good time recounting the day, which finished with 8 snook and 20 redfish, mostly caught on cut pinfish. Oddly, the first couple of redfish and some of the snook were caught on the live shiners. It was a good day with great folks. Sean is a fine young man of 27 years, and his grand dad Bernie, at 80 and going strong, is an inspiration. I look forward to many more years of fishing with him.

Tuesday was a great day with Raleigh and Spencer Watson, of Cape Carteret, North Carolina. Raleigh, twenty-one, has spent much of his life mating for his dad, who runs a 60 ft. marlin fishing operation. Spencer is twelve. They’ve both got lots of time on the water. I have to admit that I was a bit pensive about taking guys who are used to catching huge fish out flats fishing on light tackle. But, I soon found that I didn’t need to be.

I met Raleigh and Spencer at 6:30, and we were off to catch bait. I decided to stop at the bar at Marker 32, to see if the bait might be back in there. It was! We got a ton of small shiners, and a ton of pinfish of all sizes. Some of the shiners were large enough to use without the aid of a cork. We were way ahead of schedule when we got to the first spot of the day.

We began with a live shiners freelined, and under a cork. The first few minutes nothing happened. I decided to put out a piece of cut pinfish to see if we could entice a redfish. It wasn’t long before we had the first strike on that cut bait rig. Then, things busted loose. We caught fish on live and cut baits. We had a great bit going for a while, but as all things do, it came to an end as the tide slowed.

I decided we’d use the slack tide to move. We moved on the trolling motor to another area about a quarter mile away. Sean popped one nice redfish there, in spite of the slack water. That was it, though. I decided to move again to what I hoped would be my final destination for redfish and snook for the day. It was a little while before we got our first action, but once we did, the action was good. Raleigh and Spencer caught plenty of redfish and snook, and we obviously having a blast. But, finally that came to an end, too. The boys had caught a good 15 redfish and around 10 snook, mostly on cut bait.

The tide was falling and we had about an hour of fishing time left. I decided to take the boys trout fishing, and they were all for it. I took us to a flat about a mile away, and we began casting DOA shrimp in rootbeer and red flakes, and a rootbeer colored jig. I had to make one adjustment with the boat to get us a little shallower, and once I did we were on the fish. The boys had a blast catching trout after trout for the next hour. They were catching on nearly every cast. They bagged probably three dozen trout, and more than a dozen of them were nice slot fish averaging 17 to 18 inches.

On the way home Raleigh and Spencer told me they were very happy with the day, and that it lived up to their expectations. Whew! Raleigh reminded me that bill fishing can be long hours of no action, and told me that they just don’t have inshore fishing equal to ours back home. I was pleased that they were happy with the day.

Wednesday’s trip didn’t work out at the last minute, and I got a day off. Thursday, I was back on the water with an old friend Charles Ruston, whom I hadn’t seen in several years. The trip was to be a two boat trip with his family, and Rey Rodriguez as the second guide. But, Thursday morning when they arrived at the dock, it was only Charles and his sons Phillip and Travis. His wife and daughter had decided at the last minute to go beaching and shelling, instead. When I asked what was up Charles told me, the boys are going with Rey, and I’m going with you. Rey was happy, indeed. Charles thanked me for arranging the day, and assured me that there’s no way he’d leave my friend hanging after making the arrangements. Now, that’s an honorable man, folks.

So, we were off to chase bait. We headed up to the bar at marker #32, and although there were plenty of pinfish, there wasn’t a shiner to be found. We moved on over to the flats north of Flamingo, where things weren’t much better. After a lot of chumming and net tossing, I had a dozen or so shiners in the boat, and Rey had about the same. Since most of the snook and reds I’ve been catching lately have been on live and cut pins, I decided to waste no more time with bait, and get to fishing. We were off.

My first stop was at a spot that has been hot on both reds and snook. But, on this morning they weren’t interested. I moved on. It didn’t take too long at the second stop to get action. Rey and the boys were on a flat not too far away. I called them to tell them we were on fish. Before long they came to join us, and staged on our right side. For some reason, they couldn’t get the fish to bite for them, as Charles caught fish. Rey moved up about 100 yards, and tried again. Charles was having fun taunting the boys with, “Fish On!” loud enough for them to hear. After a while they moved on. We stayed with our fish, and were having fun.

And, in the middle of our redfish action Charles got quite a surprise. Something big blasted the live pinfish we had under a popping cork. Charles and I both saw it sort of roll and swirl on the bait and were both thinking monster snook. But, when the fish ate the bait and came tight on the line all hell broke loose. She felt the sting of the hook, and Charles and I were treated to the sight of a tarpon of around 25 pounds launching skyward like some kind of NASA rocket. Fish on! After a short fight, the literally charged the boat. Thank God, I had time to get the camera out and get it set to video, and was running when the fish leaped about 10 feet in front of the boat. She was so close, and so green, and there was so much adrenaline in Charles’ veins, that she broke off right there. Charles and I discussed what might have been done to prevent the break-off at the boat, but I assured him there wasn’t much that could have been done. It didn’t matter, though, and Charles had lived a moment he’ll never forget.

Once the action slowed there we moved on to another spot a mile or so away, where we were again in fish pretty quickly. Although we didn’t boat a snook, we did have several of our shiners scaled by snook that just didn’t’ want to eat. But, we caught more redfish, and were on the Nextel radio with the boys in a little competition. We stopped at 19 redfish and 1 tarpon, to go trout fishing. We figured we had the boys beat.

I moved us out to a trout flat that has been very productive of late, and we caught about a dozen nice trout in a half hour or so. By that time, we were tired, hot, and hungry and headed to the Waterfront Restaurant. We had lunch while we waited for Rey and the boys to show up. When they did, they were so excited about their trip with Rey they couldn’t stop talking about all the fun. They had finished with 17 redfish, and lost a nice snook. I was truly a great day for all of us, and it was great to spend a day with Charles after so long.

Boy, did things change on Friday. It was my annual trip with my old buddy “Sparkie Markie” Lucas, his son Andrew, and Andrew’s friend Joe, of St. Anthony, Minnesota. It was suspiciously still Friday morning, and I feared that the nice breeze we’d had every day for a couple of weeks was finally going to leave us. I knew it was inevitable, sooner or later. I also knew it would be brutally hot if it did.

We headed back to the bait grounds north of Flamingo Cut, figuring to get plenty of pinfish and a handful of shiners if we were lucky. There were islands of seaweed floating everywhere, and it was still. The water wasn’t moving. I considered moving somewhere else because of the heavy seaweed, but decided to go ahead and at least throw a time or two.

When I did throw, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Even in the dark brown waters I could see the net twinkling with shiners like a clear night sky full of twinkling stars. We had found bait! After throwing a couple more times we had 5 to 600 shiners, and plenty of pinfish in the well, and were ready to go fishing. We were well ahead of schedule, and ahead of the tide.

I explained to the boys that we’d likely have to wait on the tide before we saw any action. They were OK with that. But, the action never came. Mark caught two nice redfish on the first kick of the incoming tide, and that was it. I chummed and we fished several areas that have been very productive with no action whatsoever. The fish were totally lockjawed. The lack of a bite was made more frustrating by the intense heat.

We finally tossed in the towel on the redfish and snook, and headed to a trout flat to see if they would eat. But, even the trout were slow. The boys caught a few trout, and had fun doing it, but the heat was getting the best of all of us, and at around one o’clock we turned on the air-conditioning, and headed to the Waterfront Restaurant. It’s like an oasis in the heat of summer. Several Tropicana Lemonades and a cold seafood salad had me feeling like I might actually make it through the rest of the hot day.

I kept a close eye on the eastern sky as we ate and talked. I could see the thunderstorms that the weather folks had said we probably wouldn’t have for the next several days, brewing! It was time to go. We had no more than cleared the manatee zone when we saw lightning dancing out of one of the storms. We needed to get in ahead of that stuff, and it was percolating quickly. I sped up a little bit, and we felt the first drops of rain as we were tying up a the dock.

I had just pulled the boat out of the water when a big bolt of lightning struck somewhere very close by. The instantaneous blast of thunder scared the hell out of everyone out there. It was time to get under cover. But, by the time I got to Sugar Shack and cleaned the two redfish, the storm was already moving away from us, and it seemed to be over. It had been a tough day, and a tough way to end a great week. But, Mark and the boys weren’t discouraged, and assured me that they’d had fun. Mark is a great guy, and I always have fun with him. He’s a good friend. We gave each other a big hug, and as they drove away I had a wonderful feeling that all was well.

Next week is a week replete with awful tides to fish inshore waters. But they are what they are. I’ll be out there probably three days, two of which will be instructional. It will be interesting to see how the tides and weather and the brown, fresh water combine to affect the fishing. Stay tuned.

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