Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
July 14, 2007
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

Fort Myers Weather Forecast, FL (33908)

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FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 7/14/07

by

Capt. Butch Rickey

HOT! HOT! HOT!

It's August in July! And, as hot as it is for us anglers, it's even hotter for the fish. The problem is that in southwest Florida we're not in our normal weather pattern of clockwork afternoon thunderstorms that cool the waters down every day. Instead, we have storms brewing along the coast, or just inland, and then moving east across the state. We're getting almost no rain, especially out over the waters and the islands, and the fishing is suffering badly. The fish get into the same kind of funk they get into in January when the water gets unseasonably cold. They don't want to move. They don't want to eat. They eat during the night when they get some reprieve from the heat, and that's not much. This morning when I put in, it was a suffocating 89 degrees at five o'clock. I was soaking wet!

I did get in three trips this week, and they were nothing short of tough. The first two trips were using artificials, and the Friday trip was with bait. Bait is also an issue. First, there's almost no larger bait, save for some threadfins under the causeway. But, there is an infinity of small shiners, glass minnows, threadfins, etc., everywhere. Translation; lots of food. Lots of reasons for the fish we're chasing to ignore our offerings. For a variety of reasons this has been the toughest year that I, and I'm sure most other guides in this area, can remember. One of the lessons that fishing teaches is that we must learn to take the good with the bad.

The week began Monday with my long-time friend Don McDaniel. Don is the older brother of my best friend, Jim McDaniel, and they grew up here in Ft. Myers. I have known Don and Jim for some 45 years, and they both are like brothers to me. Having friendships that span most of your life, is one of life's greatest blessings.

Monday was the first day of the closing of the Punta Rassa ramp for 80 days of construction. Our guide association was fortunate to be able to arrange for it's members to use the small ramp facility at Port Comfort Marina. It's a very nice facility, but it wasn't designed for high volume use, as it's a one lane ramp, and doesn't have a lot of maneuvering room. But, with a little practice and the help of the very nice night guard, Craig, we're getting launched without incident. There's an idle of about 15 minutes to get to the river, where we can then run.

Don loves to snook fish, and we had already decided we were going to do that, and use artificials, rather than wasting time and energy trying to catch the prevalent tiny bait. I love to fish artificials, as does Don, but I don't get to do it very often. I've been able to fish with a baitcaster even less, and my new Shimano Calais 201 was burning a hole in it's rod holder. I was looking forward to the day with Don, even though I knew there would probably be very little catching going on.

With the morning weather pretty unstable, we decided we'd stay close to home, and opted to fish the area of Swordfish Point and Punta Blanca Creek. Most of the travel time to get there was consumed in the arbitrary and capricious manatee zones. In fact, I normally don't fish areas in manatee zones because of the long periods of idle that must be spent to get to them.

Once there, Don and I worked a long stretch of beautiful and snooky shoreline with topwater plugs. We were both just flabbergasted at the fact that we didn't even get so much as a roll or a blowup on our baits. Up inside Punta Blanca it wasn't much different. We did find some jack crevalle hanging on one point. Don caught one, and I had a half-hearted hit that didn't connect. But, at least Don got the skunk out of the boat. After spending a couple of hours there, the weather had cleared out and it was hotter than hell. We were ready for an A/C ride to the Sound.

We ran into schools of ladyfish busting the small bait everywhere as we approached our first stop. We stopped to check them out, and caught a few, but we were out there to snook fish. If we'd just been after action we could have stayed and fished those ladyfish for hours and caught them. They don't play by the same rules. We moved on, and stayed with our plan.

Once in the Sound we fished a number of mangrove keys and beautiful shorelines, all without a bite. Well, that's not completely true. On a number of occasions I had redfish bump my spoon, but refuse to eat it. Once you've done some redfish spoonin, you learn the unmistakable feel of a red that falls in behind your spoon and pecks at it. Usually once you feel that, you know that the real hit is soon to follow. But, on this day the fish were just too lethargic to follow through. One did get the spoon into his mouth deeply enough to bend the weed guard down, and still didn't eat it. Whatcha gonna do?!

We threw topwaters, suspending plugs, spoons, and jigs. All to no avail. But, we had fun until we'd had enough heat, and decided to head to the Waterfront Restaurant to cool down. What a great decision that was. Owner, J.D. was at it again. And, we were fortunate to get a chance to try his Caribbean grouper cakes on a big Caesar salad. Absolutely awesome with mango salsa on top.

We had a good time with waitresses Bonnie and Denise, who are always a hoot, and talking about old times. I always have a blast when I spend time with Don. He has a charisma about him that few possess, and most of those that do are his siblings. Seems to be a unique McDaniel thing. Every time I'm out with Don, I wonder why it is that life makes it so hard to find time for the people that really matter.

Thursday, I met my old friend Dr. John Hitt, at his dock at 6 AM. I've hardly seen John over the past year since he had his heart attack, as he's been doing double duty at the helm of UCF since his recovery. UCF is a huge ship sailing the waters of central Florida in Orlando, and John has been her very capable Captain for some fifteen years. It was good to finally see him.

Even though she had laid dormant for several months, the Yamaha 200 sprang instantly to life, and was eager to go. It was a beautiful morning, with several early morning storms now in the dying phase around us. But, as we got under way the first thing that leaped off the fish finder at us was the water temperature in the river. 90 degrees at 6 AM! Geez!

John loves to trout fish, as do I. Especially with topwater plugs. After such a long absence from the water, I wanted to put a pull on the end of his line. And, knowing there were plenty of speckled trout hold up in an area near Ft. Myers Beach that John and I fish during the winter months, I offered it as a plan. John was all for it.

Shortly after we arrived and began a drift of the chosen flat, bait began coming to the surface all around us as if we were floating in a giant pot of boiling water. There were huge schools of small bait dimpling the top, and trout, mackerel, and others blasting though it. There was plenty of bait, and plenty of fish. That was for sure. Now, could we catch them?

John already had three different topwater lures tied on to three different Stella rigs. It was just a matter of his choosing popper, slurper, or walk the dog. I was eager to try my little Mirrolure Mirrodine. It's a dead ringer for a small shiner, and has a wonderfully life-like wiggle and flash action in the water, depending upon how you retrieve it. Hell! If I was a fish I wouldn't be able to resist it.

We went to work, casting mostly around and into the pods of bait. We caught fish! We managed a keeper trout. Then another. Lots of small trout. John demonstrated his superior angling skills by again catching not one, but two pinfish on a jig!! He caught a nice spanish mackeral that was lip hooked and came to the boat. I had a big mack attack that resulted in the loss of my Mirrodine! Apparently, the toothy mackeral hit the plug at the head, and cut the leader, and probably ran off with a mouth full of treble hooks. I hated to loose that $8.00 plug.

Over the course of several hours we chased the pods of bait around on that flat tossing virtually everything we had in our tackle boxes, trying to find that magic lure that would take the minds of our target species off all the live bait, and get them to eat our plastic offerings. But, we only managed to put four nice keeper trout into the well. There were tons of fish there, but we just couldn't get the bigger ones to turn on. Finally, we finished with a gag grouper and surrendered to the intense heat. The bite was pretty much over, and we knew it.

We had accomplished our objective, which was to have fun catching. We'd only managed four keepers, but we'd had a great time, and we'd be back at the dock before noon. BUT! I still haven't caught a fish with my Calais!! Aargh!

Even with the heat and the really slow fishing I couldn't wait for Friday to see my old buddy "Sparky" Marky Lucas, of St. Anthony, Minnesota, and his fifteen year-old son Andrew. I guess that in reality I've only known Mark about six years, but it seems like decades. Mark and I became friends the first time we fished, and stay in contact throughout the years via email. He's an avid hunter and fisherman, and loves being out there no matter what's going on. We've had some great times together over the years. And, that of course, includes Andrew and his best friend Joe, who was also along for this trip. It's really cool, ya know. I've see Andrew and Joe grow from boys to fine young men.

Sparky, Andrew, and Joe were early, and we managed to get an early start out of Port Comfort. I had considered fishing snook on the beach with lures, but decided it might be very tough with three anglers in the boat. So, I decided on trying to catch bait at Picnic Island. Once we cleared the slow zone out of Port Comfort, I put the Talon on course for Picnic in the darkness. I could hear the sound of dawn trying to crack over our right shoulders as we rode along. Once we arrived at Picnic, Mark told me that was about as scared as he'd ever been, riding along in the darkness seeing channel markers and manatee signs pop out of the darkness just feet away while running along at 40 MPH. I told Mark, "Hell, I'd have been scared to death, too, if I could have seen anything!" We had a good laugh!

Although plentiful, the bait was predictably tiny. After half dozen throws we had a well full of "gillers", with a few larger shiners, and some pinfish. I didn't want to waste any more time or tide trying to catch bait we probably wouldn't have a chance to use. It's the old thing of diminishing returns. We were off, to fish snook on the beach. I knew it was a long shot this late in the season, as the bite usually gets tough after the snook spawn on the June full moon, and the waters heat up in July.

Although we had storms offshore, and an onshore breeze, it wasn't a bad ride to the beach. We set up a drift along the beach pitching our small shiners up to the edge of the sand, bass style. We pitched and we drifted along on the trolling motor. Nothing! We moved about a mile down the beach, and tried again. Andrew caught a nice snook, and did a great job of fighting that fish even though he hadn't done so in a year. Sparky was obviously proud of Jr. Sparky, as was I. He hadn't forgotten the lessons of years gone by.

SUMMER FISHING FUN!



We had a few other half-hearted hits, one blow on some chum, and Sparky caught a mackerel, but basically the snook bite was shut down. It wasn't going to happen. We'd given it enough time, and I knew from my many years of fishing the beach that if we hadn't gotten a bite by this time, we weren't going to get one. We headed back toward Ft. Myers Beach, to try the trout fishing.

Once there, the bait was up and showing, but there was almost no action on the bait. The current was running hard, and it was hard to stay on the pods of bait. Sparky managed a couple of trout, and the boys missed a few, but that was about it. The fish just weren't interested. We now had a lot of weather bubbling up around us, and could see a lot of rain falling not too far away, and could hear thunder. I decided to finish up the day close to home.

Now, get this! I went back to Punta Rassa Cove, from whence we'd come out of the darkness. But, it only took Sparky, with his keen sense of direction, honed by years of hunting and fishing, to figure out that we were back where we had entered the river that morning. Now, that amazed me, seeing as how he'd never been there before that morning, and it was completely dark! I want Sparky Marky with me the next time I get lost in a fog!!

We fished a couple of beautiful mangrove keys with our tiny shiners under popping corks. Andrew managed to catch one mangrove snapper, and both the boys missed a few other hits, but that was it. We had dark storm clouds and rain on several quadrants around us, and the sound of thunder close by. But, once we had a clap of thunder behind us where the weather was coming from, it was time to go. We had weather all around us. Weather like this is very unpredictable. Any reasonable chances of catching anything else had already passed, and it was time to go to the dock.

Once out of the water we stood around chatting for a while. I apologized to Sparky for the tough catching, and joked with the boys that Mark would probably hire a different guide next year. But, Mark was quick to let me know that it wasn't just about always having 100 snook days. Rather, it was about friendship, and we ARE friends. How many times have I told my readers the best part of guiding is the wonderful friendships you make. They're lifetime friendships, and the main force that keeps me in this at times very difficult business. Thanks, Sparky!

NOTE: As I mentioned earlier in this report, the Punta Rassa Ramp is closed for construction. Those of you who have trips scheduled between now and the end of September, need to note that we will be launching at the Port Comfort Marina ramp. If you're on Sanibel/Captiva, just exit the new causeway and go about a mile down McGregor Blvd. to Port Comfort Rd. You will see water on your left which is Punta Rassa Cove, and the Lighthouse Restaurant sitting back off the road a bit. Turn left on to Port Comfort and go down until you see the little hump-back bridge. Just before you get to it the ramp is on the left. Your parking will be back behind you, still on the left. You will see a gazebo, and/or some trolleys. That's the parking lot for you. See you there!

Be sure to check out www.BestFishingBooks.com Books and gifts for fishermen from my friend Jim Dicken!

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