Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
April 23, 2006
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 4/22/06 by Capt. Butch Rickey

It was a week of horrible tides that grew worse as the week progressed. Wednesday and Thursday were unbooked largely because of the poor tides. Friday was booked by my old friend Jeff Stevens, down in Naples, to take his father-in-law fishing, but he wound up in the hospital before he made it to the plane. Even if he had gotten out quickly, he’d have never made it for the trip. So, it was a two day work week.

First up on Monday was Donna Pratt, and her friend Don, of Medford, New York. Donna had expressed an interest in tarpon fishing if the prospects seemed good, but as the morning unfolded, they didn’t. The wind was up enough early to make the prospects seems poor. So, we opted for snook fishing.

I was on the water before the chickens were up casting for bait, and the first thing I noticed was that there was not large bait at all, and none of the usually present big threadfins. There were zillions of little guys plugging up my net, though, and plenty of shiners mixed in. But, even with the lit well, it’s impossible to tell exactly what you have until there’s good sunlight, as the more bait you put into the well, the more it blocks out the light. I fished several places, and never saw a large bait, and neither did anyone else I talked to at the ramp.

With the water laying absolutely flat for almost all morning, my strategy was to fish somewhere I knew there were plenty of snook, and plenty of big snook, and keep chumming them and hitting them on the head with baits in hopes that one would eat once in a while. Might seem like a strange was to do business, but our fish are so driven by tide movement that it’s about all you can do when the water isn’t moving. I always joke that we’re out looking for stupid fish, but there seems to be a lot of truth to that.

So, once at my chosen destination that’s exactly what we did. I was fighting the dying threadfins, big time, and I wasn’t bashful about chumming with them. And, in what seems such typical snook fashion, they were quite willing to blow up our chum. The fish were all over the place. But, getting to take one with a hook in it was another story, entirely. Countless of our baits came back scaled across the middle, or with small tell-tale snook bites on them, and we couldn’t feel it happen.

We stayed with the plan, and one by one, we managed to catch a few snook. Don had the hot rod early, if you could call it that. His first or second snook was a beautiful 31 inch, 9 pound fish. Right after that, he missed another one that surely was bigger than that. Donna was wondering what was going on, as she wasn’t getting hit, and they were fishing right beside each other.

Once the tide finally began to crawl around ten o’clock, things didn’t get any better. Even though the water was moving, it was a slow groaner of a tide. I decided on a major location change. When I got to my destination I could see a boat anchored on the north end of the key. That left the rest of the key that I could fish without bothering the other boat, who turned out to be my cousin Capt. Terry Middleton.

I took up position on a part of the key where there were some fairly deep pockets near the oysters, and began chumming. Soon, we had snook blasting all over the place, and shortly afterward we had some of them biting. We enjoyed a pretty good bite for a little while, but it wasn’t long lived. But, it was long enough for Donna’s rod to get hot and for her to catch up to Don. Don still had title to the biggest fish of the day, though.

By that time it was past time to head home. We had managed to make the best of a really tough tide day, and I think Donna and Don were happy. I was shocked though, that Donna hadn’t put a whoopin on Don. Usually, the ladies outfish the guys in every category you can name. I think they wound up at about even. Either way, it was a fun day.

Tuesday’s tide was a dead ringer for Monday, except that there was even less movement in the morning. It was dead still until around eleven o’clock. My customer was Chad Guessford and his 12 year old son, Tyler. Believe it or not, I hadn’t seen them since around 1997. I had referred Chad long ago to my cousin Sean Middleton, who is now out of the business. They had been fishing with Sean, and having a good time. It was good to see Chad and Tyler after so many years. He hadn’t been down from North Carolina in several years, and was surprised to hear how much the snook rules had changed. He wanted Tyler to catch a keeper snook or two, but I warned him that at 26 inches minimum, keeper snook weren’t as easy to come by as they once were. I think Chad said the last time they’d fished with Sean the limit was still 22 inches. I was baited up and ready to go try to harass some snook into biting, if we could.

I knew the place I had started the day before was full of fish, and we had managed to get some to eat, and tangled with some nice fish. So, there was no better place to begin on exactly the same tide. Again, it was chum the fish and try to get them to turn on. I had lots of bait to waste, and liberally applied the chum. And, eventually we did get some fish to eat. We had plenty of fish blowing up our chum, for sure. At one point, we had two big blows a long cast away at the back of the hole. I knew from the sound of the pop and the amount of water moved, it was a big snook.

I rigged a couple of popping cork rigs to enable me to get the small baits to the fish, and to keep the bait up off the bottom in the very shallow water. We didn’t have to wait long after putting those two baits out before all hell broke loose. Tyler’s rod went off, and you’d have thought we’d hooked another 7 ft. tarpon the way line was screaming off the reel. This was a big snook! The fight was on, and Tyler’s eyes were the size of half dollars with the excitement of such a fish.

Realizing this was a big enough snook to spool the Stella 2500 of it’s nearly 200 yards of Power Pro, and realizing this was not the fish to try to teach young Tyler the tricks of turning big fish with light gear, I quickly had the Power Pole raised and the new MinnKota 80 running at full tilt trying to get some line back on the reel. But, that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to get some of that distance back. I knew that even with a circle hook, there was no guarantee that the fish was hooked in the bone of the lip. It was very possible that the hook was deep inside the mount, in which case it would take no time to rub through the 30 pound flouro. And, it was also very possible that the fish was hooked in the membrane of the mouth, in which case there would surely be a long tear, and nothing to keep the fish from shaking the hook out of there if Tyler gave the big female any slack. I knew that either way, time was of the essence if Tyler was going to have a shot at landing that fish.

I also knew that after a long run of nearly a hundred yards, the fish would be tired, and we would have a chance to get her to the boat if we could get most of the line back. And, with Tyler pumping and reeling just as hard and fast as he could go, we almost pulled it off. The fish had tried to jump once, but there hadn’t been enough water under her for her to completely clear the water. But, I had seen enough and knew that she was a trophy. I wanted that fish in the boat, and I know Chad did, as well. Tyler had her within ten feet of the boat, and I thought we had pulled it off. I was going for the leader with BogaGrip in hand, with the fish in full view. She was big. I’ve had plenty of snook over 20 pounds brought to the boat by customers over the years, and this fish was easily well into the 20’s, and a good 4 ft. long. What a picture this would be with your Tyler trying to hold up a huge snook!

The line suddenly went limp. Chad and Tyler both thought she’d broken the line, but I instinctively knew the hook had pulled. I’ve seen it happen so many times, and it’s not the same as when the line parts. The big grandma snook had won another battle with an inexperienced angler, and had proudly swam away. Tyler was bussing from his adrenaline rush, but Chad was visibly bummed. He wanted his son to win that battle. But, that’s snookin! Even the best snookers only win about half the battles with snook like that!

We took about 7 snook from the area before switching our attention to redfish. We still had an opportunity for more snook, but I really wanted to see if we could get some reds to eat. So, at the next spot I set about chumming with both live and fresh cut bait, and we put out baits under corks, and spread over a pretty wide area.

It took a while, and we had to wait on the water to finally begin crawling, but we got some redfish to eat. The first couple were just under the 18 inch minimum. But, eventually we had another school show up, and the boys added a couple of nice keepers to their total. Seems like no matter where I go chasing redfish this spring, the big blacktip sharks always show up, as well. This day was no different. We had one around 5 ft. long that kept raiding our flat and chasing the reds. And, had it not been for that I think we might have really worn out some redfish. As it was, the boys managed 6 redfish before Chad’s back gave up on him. Old football injuries had raised their ugly heads, and Chad was ready to head in.

It had been a descent day on such a miserable tide. Tyler had hooked the biggest fish he’d ever had on the end of a line, they’d caught some snook, and caught some redfish, and had a couple to take home for dinner for the rest of the week. I don’t think Tyler will soon forget that snook!

And, that’s how it went. The rest of the week was a wash. But, next week is a full one with good tides on the new moon. It should be a good week with lots of good fish if the weather doesn’t act up. Seems like we’re getting our March in April this year, so who knows.

Tight Lines!

More Fishing Reports:

• All Reports by Capt. Butch Rickey
• Pine Island Sound Fishing Reports
• Southwest Florida (Cape Sable to Boca Grande) Reports
• Florida Fishing Reports
• Browse All Fishing Reports