Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
July 16, 2006
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 7/15/06 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Red tide is here! The biggest challenge for the week was keeping live bait just that........alive! There were other frustrations, too. But, we did manage to catch some fish.

My first trip on Tuesday was with an old friend, Eric Fosbender, and his good friend Justin, over from Davie, Florida. Eric’s folks own a place on Pine Island, in Bokeelia, and the boys come over to fish from Eric’s boat every chance they get.

I headed off into the darkness in the Maverick to the Waterfront Restaurant to pick up the guys. It was just getting light as we headed off toward the marker 32 bar for bait. There was plenty of bait there, and it came pretty easily. It wasn’t long before we were off to the east side for the first spot of the morning. We were on a slack tide, and I was looking for water with at least a little movement. We managed 3 or 4 small snook there before the action died. There were plenty of fish there, but they weren’t in the mood to eat.

We headed north, and as we rode I made some detours into the shallows looking for pushing redfish. I saw a school push ahead of us and immediately shut down before spooking them. Once we were situated we had redfish all around us, and you could see them occasionally push. We quickly put out three live shiners under popping corks, and it wasn’t long before we had the first redfish on and coming to the boat. But, by the time we landed the first fish, I realized that our bait had begun to die. We were obviously in water that was infected with the red tide in a high enough concentration to kill our bait in the confines of the baitwell. Quickly, we put everything away, got to a pothole, and launched out of there. They guys were stirring the bait trying to keep them alive.

I decided to cross the Sound to the Sanibel side, and when we arrived there were dead fish floating everywhere, including a snook or two. The wind was out of the east, which would blow dead fish from across the Sound to the west side. It didn’t necessarily mean the water was bad. But, before we could get serious about fishing the area our bait was indeed dying, and we were off again. We were down to just a couple of dozen survivors.

I opted to go farther north in search of good water. Catching fish almost became a secondary consideration. We settled in the area of Charley’s Pass, and worked some of the stumps strewn about by the hurricane. We had pods of bait moving around close to us, so I decided to get the castnet out and see if we could catch some fresh bait without having to get out the chum. With Eric running the MinnKota, we quickly had a livewell again full of bait, and it was nearly all nice shiners.

It took a little while, but we eventually got on a good bite, and literally saved the day right there. Eric and Justin had fun catching redfish and snook for the duration of the tide. I believe our count was 7 redfish, and about 15 snook. It was a good area that gave us both bait and fish.

We may have been able to catch some more fish, but the weather was fast brewing back toward the ramp, and I knew I’d be cutting it close by the time I dropped the boys off back at the Waterfront. By the time we got there the storms were brewing into some nasty looking weather, and were coming fast. We off-loaded the boys and their fish and gear, and I took off, hoping for the best. I ran the Maverick pretty hard, and got to Punta Rassa ramp just under the weather. Shortly after getting the boat out of the water, the storm hit. Whew!

Wednesday, I was to run a trip for Operation Open Arms, organized by Capt. John Bunch, with a Marine sergeant just back from Iraq. All the arrangements had been made, and he was to be at the ramp at 0550 hours.

I was excited about doing the trip and was wide awake at 0300 hours. It was probably a good thing, as I had several obstacles to overcome. The first was that I’d lost the light on the Maverick on the trip with Eric and Justin. The storms lasted all day long after my return, and I hadn’t been able to even try to find out what might be wrong. So, I would have to wake the Talon up from her summer hibernation.

We have had so many copious rains this summer, that my boat yard was now more of a mud bog. There was water standing all around both of my boats, and it was ankle deep and deeper. I wasn’t thrilled about slopping around in the mess in total darkness trying to get the Talon ready.

The second obstacle became getting out of my boat yard. Everything was so slick, that my tires just kept spinning out. But, I’m an old Sanibel boy, and I learned how to drive on sandy beaches and muddy dirt roads as a very young man, and that experience paid big dividends that morning. I patiently worked the van and boat toward the payment several hundred yards away, crawling along using as little throttle as I could to make the rig move. It was dicey, but I made it.

The Talon hadn’t been run in about a month, but she cranked right up at the ramp. I was very early. It was 0500 hours. I tied her up and enjoyed my coffee and the cool morning breeze. 0600 came and went, and there was no sergeant. I began to wonder if I had missed something, or if perhaps I hadn’t been told to pick him up at the Waterfront, or somewhere else. By now it was 0630, and I knew something was wrong. I jumped into the Talon and headed out to the river. Clearing the slow zone I rolled the throttle on, and the Yamaha was only hitting on 3 cylinders. Damn! I couldn’t believe it. I fiddled around with it for a few minute, but the cylinders wouldn’t lite. I headed back to the ramp.

I had no contact information or phone numbers for my soldier, but at that point I figured I’d been stood up. I resolved to pull the boat and head to Fowler Marine to have Danny check things out. But, once I got the trailer in the water and cranked the Yamaha to put her on the trailer, the motor was running fine! I don’t know what was happening, but it had cured itself. I parked the van again, and headed out to the Waterfront. When I arrived the place was closed and there was no one around. I headed back to Punta Rassa hoping to find my sergeant waiting on me, but he wasn’t.

Do I have to tell you I was beyond pissed?! It’s just inconceivable to me that anyone, say nothing of a soldier who is about to go on a free fishing trip, would stand a guide up at the ramp, and not have the courtesy to contact either me or Capt. Bunch to tell us he couldn’t make it. Short of being in the hospital or the morgue, there’s just no excuse for that kind of bull. I went home around 0730.

My last trip on Friday was with an old, old friend, Eric Wickstrom, whom I hadn’t seen in nearly five years. He was with his friend, Peter. Eric and I had spent some great days together on the water, catching lots of fish, and of course I had hopes that this would be another great day, especially since Peter had never experienced this kind of fishing.

Eric and Peter were quite early, and we were away from the dock by 0530. The ride up to the marker 32 bar in total darkness was exhilarating. We arrived in darkness, and had to wait a while to actually find the bar. Once situated, the bait came quickly. Unfortunately, it died as soon as it was in the confines of the well! Obviously, we had a good concentration of red tide out in the middle of the Sound.

We headed north to Fosters Point, hoping to find the water still good there, and find bait. Although there were tons of glass minnows and tiny new hatch shiners, there was no usable bait other than pinfish. We kept enough to fish with just in case our search turned up no shiners. I ran into my friend Capt. Jeff Zasadny there, who was in the same predicament. Together we headed up to the flats just inside the pass at Cayo Costa. It was more of the same. No shiners. We moved farther north, again without shiners showing up. I made the decision to abandon the search for bait, and go with what we had. I didn’t want to waste any more of our time trying to find shiners that might all die in an instant if we got into bad water.

Since I was so far north, I decided to press on to a spot that I had fished a few months earlier for the first time in over ten years. We had caught a bunch of redfish that morning, just as in years gone by. But, with the slow crawling falling tide and the bright moonlit nights, the fish weren’t interested. We were about ready to move on when Capt. Jeff called and said he’d found bait. We headed back to join Jeff and catch some quick bait.

Jeff was just wrapping up when we arrived, and kept the bait there until we could take over. I made one throw and had plenty of bait. It was nowhere what I’d usually put into the well, but I didn’t want to put a bunch of bait in the well and crowd it and wind up loosing it all in bad water.

Since we were close and I was reasonably sure the water was still good around Charley’s Pass, we headed back there to see if we could again get on those fish. But, the water just wasn’t moving, except for an every so slight fall. We couldn’t get anything to eat.

At this point it was obvious we were going to have to take our chances on loosing our bait in infected water to try to find fish. I headed back across to the east side of the Sound. We were still way north, and although there were still floaters, our bait was surviving. Peter let the first nice redfish get away right near the boat. Of course, he had to take some ribbing about that.

We worked our way back south fishing several spots, and managed 3 snook and 2 redfish. It was a very tough day, indeed. I told Peter he’d seen the fishing about as tough as it gets, and Eric assured him that he’d caught lots of fish here in years gone by. It was great to have Eric in the boat again after so long, even though I was very distracted with the issues we had that day.

There’s no way to predict how long the red tide will be around, or how severe it could ultimately be. It could be gone tomorrow, or it could hang around. It could easily be blown out of our area by a good south or north wind. But, it would almost have to be related to something tropical going on this time of year, as the fronts rarely make it this far south during the summer. We just have to pray it doesn’t hang around like it did off the Sarasota/Venice area last year. And, in the meantime we just have to make the best of it, and do the best we can.

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