Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
April 1, 2006
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 4/1/06 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Seems this spring I’m seeing more new customers than usual. All but one trip this week was with new customers, save for one. All I can say is that I hope everyone in our business is fortunate enough to have customers as great as mine.

First up this week was Ken Padilla, a retired Marine officer and avid bow hunter, who recently moved to Sarasota. He came down Sunday night and spend the night at the fishcamp, so he wouldn’t have to get up at 3 AM to be here on time. We went out to dinner and had a nice evening talking fishing, mostly. I knew I’d like Ken, just from talking back and forth with him via emails. He’d told me he’s somewhat of a perfectionist and likes good equipment, as do I. He had at my recommendation gone out and purchased a Stella 3000FB and a St. Croix Legend Tournament rod to go with it. The same rigs I fish. I knew he was serious about getting into Florida fishing.

We got up before the chickens Monday morning and were on the water before 5 AM. We set off to the A span of the causeway to catch bait in the dark. By 0630 hrs. we were baited up and the boat washed, and ready to go fishing.

We’d had a big front come roaring through here Thursday night and into Friday, and it had really knocked the temperatures down. In fact we had record cold for the dates over the weekend, and it also sucked the heat out of the water, dropping the temperature some 10 degrees, or so. It had howled from the north for two days since, and was supposed to do the same on Monday. I had warned Ken that I didn’t expect much in the way of a bite, knowing how the big cold fronts kill the fishing.

But to the surprise and delight of us both, we had some descent fishing. I don’t really know why. At our first stop Ken caught quite a few snook and several big winter speckled trout, including several keeper snook. We fished a few spots without much happening, and then later got on a few more snook to make our day. In all Ken put about 14 snook and several trout into the boat, and although that’s not a banner day by our standards, we were both very pleased. And, I think I can say with absolutely certainty that Ken has been smitten and bitten by the snook bug!

We finished our day with a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant. I hated to see the day come to an end, as did Ken. He vowed to be back for more, soon.

Tuesday was reserved for my old friend Mike Howard, who hales from Brookfield, New Hampshire, but owns a place in St. James City. Like me, Mike is a Florida boy, and is about as nice as they come. Some of you regular readers may remember that he fought and beat lung cancer a few years ago, at about the same time my wife Jean was fighting breast cancer. I’m happy to say that he’s as fat and sassy as he’s ever been, and looks healthier today than he did when I first started fishing with him years ago.

Mike brought a long his friend Emil Winniker, who winters here from Michigan, and who is a rabid fisherman, too. I was looking forward to seeing Mike again, and meeting Emil, and told Mike we’d probably go with what has been working under the tough frontal conditions. It would be old hat for Mike. I picked them up at the Waterfront Restaurant in St. James City, as I usually do, and we were off, expecting the fishing to be improving each day as we left the front behind.

But, once we got out there we soon realized that wasn’t going to be the case. At the first stop the bite was tough, even though it’s the place to be on a low-incoming tide after a spring cold front. We managed a few snook, and some trout. We fished quite a few spots without seeing much in the way of action, but Emil did get his keeper snook from a small pothole. Finally, later in the trip we found a few more snook and trout, and even got one redfish, giving us the West Coast Slam. But, it had been a hard day as far as catching was concerned.

You’ll notice in the picture that the redfish looks a bit odd. It had been virtually scaled from the head back, probably by a porpoise, and had lived to tell about it. There were no breaks in the fishes skin, which is what leads me to believe that it was the molar-like teeth of a porpoise that nearly got him. His immune system was totally compromised, and it’s likely we saved him from a slow death. That picture was taken at the docks of the Waterfront Restaurant, where we finished our day with a great lunch.

I had been looking forward to my Wednesday trip with Tom and Marlene Ott, since October of last year. We’d had to cancel several times because of weather and because of a surgery for Marlene. The weather had settled down, and the days were beautiful, but the fishing was tough. If Tom and Marlene weren’t returning to their home up north soon, I would have postponed, again. But, we were out of days, and the weather was beautiful, so we had to take our chances.

I was on the water at around 5 AM, and had the well of the Talon filled with bait from the A span of the causeway when I returned to the dock at 6:30 to pick up Tom and Marlene. I’m noticing a lot of small squid in the net this spring, as well as a lot of cigar minnows. I can’t remember the last time I saw that. I have also see a tarpon or two rolling in the river near the causeway while catching bait.

It was great to finally meet Tom and Marlene, and as we sped off toward our first stop of the day, I hoped that I could put together not only a good day of fishing, but a good day of catching for them. But, as the day unfolded, it became obvious that we would struggle to catch snook or redfish.

At our first stop Tom and Marlene did put a couple of keeper snook into the boat, along with a few nice trout. At a nearby pothole they caught a few more snook. But, the bite was very slow. I headed across the Sound thinking I could find some action in a completely different area. Not long after we got underway we came upon a big school of ladyfish. I asked Tom if he wanted to catch a couple, and he said he wasn’t much interested. But, when I informed him that they were one of the best redfish baits around, he quickly changed his mind.

We stopped to fish the school of feeding fish, and not only did we catch the biggest ladyfish I’ve seen in many years, but caught a nice spanish mackeral on a shiner and a big, fat trout on a jig. Marlene missed quite a few ladyfish while trying to get the hang of it. Ladyfish in the well, we moved on.

At our destination I felt good about having ladyfish to offer the redfish, but nothing was buying what we were offering. They just weren’t interested. We fished a number of great spots without so much as a look. We had seen all the action we were going to see unless we stayed out there until late in the day! We headed to the Waterfront Restaurant to end the day with a great lunch. It had been a tough but fun day with some wonderful folks.

I had been looking forward to my Thursday trip with Harold “Chip” wood almost a year, but had first heard from him back in March of 1999. Chip’s coworkers had purchased a trip for him when he retired from USPS. How cool. We were going to finally get to run our trip with good weather. But, Chip had called me the night before asking if he could again postpone the trip, because the friend who was to join him had to cancel at the last minute. I felt awful not being able to accommodate him, but had to tell him that the night before the trip he had two options, fish or cut bait (forfeit deposit). Chip understood the situation, and of course, said he’d seem me in the morning.

Again, I had been out there before 5 AM throwing my new 8 ft. True Spread castnet from West Coast Nets. Bait was pretty good each day throwing around all the barges used in the construction of the new Sanibel Causeway. I had enough bait for two trips.

Our first stop was a place where I love to be on the last of a falling tide during the winter or spring. Problem was, we were on he last of a crawling falling tide. There was no strength, and there wasn’t much of a bite from anything. Ken managed to catch a snapper or two, several catfish, and a couple of trout. Chip had spent many days fishing small trout on streams, and was delighted with our specked trout. After pronouncing him “Catfish King”, I decided to change my plans entirely, and take him trout fishing.

I decided upon a pothole that is in extremely shallow water on a big winter low tide, and that would still be pretty shallow on our higher spring tide. I knew from what I had seen that if the fish would bite, Chip was have a blast. Well, not only did they bite, but they were in a frenzy, almost. They were crushing our baits as soon as they hit the water. The first few fish were small, but we quickly got through the smallies to the bigger slot fish, and Chip and I had a blast catching them for at least a couple of hours. I told Chip that if he wanted to move on to chase a different species, we would do so. But, he was quite content to stay there catching those willing trout until they quit biting. When we were sure they were slowing down, we moved on.

We hit a couple of snook spots, but all we got was scaled baits for the most part. We did get a big trout and a big snook to eat, but both wound up getting away!

As we arrived at our next spot, we were treated to something Ken had never seen before, a huge school of fish in a feeding frenzy in shallow water/! What a sight to see! The water was boiling with fish crashing the small glass minnows and threadfins that are everywhere right now. In fact, I would say they are the cause of the slow fishing for the last several days. We have seen zillions of new-hatch baitfish everywhere I’ve gone on the flats. With that much natural bait in the waters, why impetus do the fish have to eat what we’re offering, other than our offerings are a little bigger? Not much, really.

Well, I told Chip that it was either a school of reds or a school of jack crevalle. Most likely jacks. However, I’ve seen big speckled trout and snook do the exact thing over the years. I knew that if they were jacks, they would be up and down, and move quickly. Usually, you only get a shot or two at jacks when they’re up feeding like that, as they are always on the move. More often than not, you can’t even keep up with them on your trolling motor.

I jockeyed the Talon into position, and put a bait on top of the fish. It was inhaled immediately, and Chip was hooked up with his first big jack. It ripped line from the small Stella for some time before Chip got the fish subdued. What a fight a jack gives. Probably more horsepower per pound than anything in our water, yet they get no respect from most fishermen because they’re not considered good table-fare. By the time we got that fish taken care of the big feed appeared to be over.

We were having an issue with the Yamaha on the Talon. It had gone into alarm a couple of times, and what I first thought was an overheat alarm turned out to be a low oil alarm. I’ve been so busy that for the first time ever, I had let the main tank get too low on oil. Thank goodness for Yamaha’s seemingly fail-safe system. I added a gallon of oil, but was still in alarm. After a call to my friend Danny Fowler, of Fowler Marine, we were back in business, and at about the same time the jacks reappeared. We HAD to chase them, again.

We missed several takes, and thought we’d blown our last chance, but the fish finally showed one more time, and we got Chip hooked up once again. It wasn’t as big a fish as the first, but we hadn’t yet taken a picture of him with a fish, so that’s the one you see. We waited around for the fish to show again, but at this point the tide was done, and so were the jacks. Never mind, though. It was a great day. Chip and I’d had a blast!

As great as the week had been with my new customers, I was glad to see the week coming to an end. I was whipped. I needed a day off, but had to get through Friday to get it!

My customers were Ray Ballad and his son Jason. Ray now lives in Cape Coral, after a tour of a number of years in Ireland. Jason is from Ft. Lauderdale. Ray is a native Floridian, and graduated from the same high school I did, Ft. Myers Senior High, back in 1957. In his early days he did commercial mullet fishing. Jason has fished with an offshore fishing team until recently. Obviously, both are experienced fishermen. But, it’s been many years for Ray, and Jason’s offshore world is totally different from the inshore world. They were frustrated at fishing together here and catching almost nothing trip after trip. This was an instructional trip of sorts.

I met Ray and Jason at 6:30, loaded with bait after throwing the net nearly 30 times in the hour and a half I’d been out there. Bait was tough. But, we had plenty, and were ready to fish. But, for the first couple of hours we had an awful falling tide to fish. I had very low expectations of those first couple hours, and they were met! We used the last part of the crawling tide as travel time, and moved on up into the Sound.

I settled on a hole adjacent to a small mangrove key that has paid big dividends over the years. Yes, there are times when you can’t get the fish to eat, just like at any other spot, but I knew the fish were there, and pretty much always are this time of year.

The first couple of minutes were quiet, but all of a sudden Ray had a big hit on his big threadfin, and all hell broke loose. I automatically went into my coaching mode, as I knew Ray wouldn’t have a chance at landing the fish if I didn’t. He listened and executed well, and a few minutes later a very excited Ray had the snook at boatside. It was his best hook and line snook ever. I think he was shocked at how much pressure he had been able to put on the fish with light tackle per my instruction. And, he was shocked at the speed at which I was coaching him to pump and reel. But, he had seen that it indeed works. He’d won the battle.

We fished around the area for a while, and caught several snook and a couple of redfish. When we were sure the action was over, we moved on further north into the Sound, and again found some action. The action was better on our chum than it was on our baits, but we caught several more snook and redfish. I commented that all we needed was a trout for the Slam, and the boys replied that they even had trouble finding trout, and wanted to go trout fishing. I wasn’t sure we could find any trout action this late on the tide, but we were going to give it a shot.

I headed back to my favorite trout flats, where ironically, Ray and Jason had been fishing a lot with little to no luck. Almost immediately after anchoring, we were in trout action. Many, if not most of the fish, were good slot fish. They both seemed amazed that I could switch gears from snook and redfish, and take them to another area and put them right on trout. It was fun for me to watch them catching plenty of trout and making that little boy that lives inside us all happy catching fish.

Once the fish slowed down we headed to the Waterfront Restaurant for a great lunch, and fun recapping the day. It had indeed been a fun day with Ray and Jason. As we prepared to make the final leg from the restaurant to the ramp, there were a lot of people out on the docks showing interest in the Talon and asking about the fishing. I urged Jason to show them the snook we’d kept, and of course, it drew lots of comments!

I’ve had lots of better weeks of catching, but it’s hard to remember a week that was more satisfying in terms of the folks I met, and friends I made. What a week. And, that’s what it’s all about!

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