The Fronts Just Keep On Coming!
Capt. Butch Rickey
April 16, 2014
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Week ending 3/22/14..........
The cold fronts and bad weather just keep on coming. I was to fish with a great young man named Rob Bingemen, of Great Falls, Montana, on Monday, but the weather gods had other ideas. We had heavy rains, high winds, frequent thunderstorms, and tornado warnings, and it was certainly prudent to reschedule our trip to Thursday. The bad part is that the tide on Monday was a good one, and on Thursday, was a stinker.
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Wednesday, I met my friends Ed and Marianne Brill at their new home in Cape Coral, to do an instructional trip with Ed. I also brought a laptop so that we could do some classroom work on tides, weather, Google Earth, and Bing maps. After some coffee and a tour of the place, we made our way out to Ed's Shearwater 22, and dropped her into the water. After about a ten minute idle out of the lake/canal system, we were at the river, and on our way. The weather had really settled down, and it was a beautiful day.
We spent most of the day going from place to place, while Ed made mental notes, marked way-points, etc. I had recommended that Ed not bring rods/reels, so that he wouldn't be sidetracked from our primary mission by the temptation to fish. He did, so I brought along a couple, too.
We arrived at one of my favorite winter/spring trout and snook spots, and as I described to Ed how to fish it, he asked if we could fish a bit. We did, and quickly had 6 nice keeper trout in the boat, and several that were under. After showing Ed a few more spots nearby, we moved on.
A while later we stopped at a spot I used to love to fish in the spring and summer. It's a great place for redfish and snook. We moved around the spot to see what we could see, and there were indeed some nice snook laid up on it. We decided to make a few casts, and boated a very nice redfish on a Mirrodine.
By then it was getting late in the day, and we had fish to clean, and I had to make preparations for s trip the next day. We headed in. We never had time to break the computer out, so we'll do it next time, soon. Fish cleaned, I was ready to take off, but Marianne had a nice surprise for me. She gave me a large container of her homemade corn beef and cabbage, as well as her homemade Caesar salad and dressing. Oh, my God. It was all so good, and there was actually enough to get three full meals out of. Thank you, Marianne.
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Thursday morning Rob Bingeman was up again. I wasn't happy that we had moved his day, as the weather boys had totally blown the report. They were calling for heavy rains, frequent storms, high winds, and tornado warnings. None of it materialized before it was over. So, we were forced to fish a day with a much less desirable tide.
I picked Rob up near the Sanibel Lighthouse, and we headed to Ding Darling to see if we could make a lunch from the power line service road work. There's a ditch that comes right up to the road there, and plenty of parking. But, once ready to launch and fish, my Ultimates are pretty heavy to be dragging more than a few yards. I usually park right at the water's edge and drop them.
We had to carry the boats about 40 yards, and then lower them down the steep bank to the low water on the low tide. The muck we had to deal with was hard to stand or maneuver in. Nasty, squishy stuff! We finally managed to get underway, though. But, with the water so low, we had a hell of a time even getting out of the canal to the open water of the Wulfert Keys. We had at least half dozen areas where we had to push our way through the available space to get out, putting the finish on my boats in great peril. But, we did get out, and were on our way to the Buck Key area.
We did stop and fish a few low spots along the way. The mean depth of most of the flat was less than a foot deep. No signs of life other than some mullet.
We fished a series of very productive potholes south of Wulfert Channel, but only managed two trout where the big trout action is normally awesome this time of year. I knew right there it wouldn't be easy from there on.
After giving the area a good chance to produce, we moved on further to the north. We settled on another hole that is usually gang-busters, and it was more of the same. We got 1 trout.
We moved on, following the tide. It was time to try to find some redfish. We got staged and waited on the water a bit, and wound up loosing a big redfish, there. Rob did bag a red there, though.
We made one more move to redfish territory. There were several boats in the area. There were plenty of spots to fish. One guide boat that was close by, was chumming with live bait trying to get something going. He chummed and chummed, and I saw one fish hooked, but I'm not sure it made it into the boat. Rob did tag one more fish in that area.
Finally, it was time to head in, as the tide had run out of gas. We had covered about 3 miles, and had another 3 miles to get home. With the wind out of the north, we had the wind at our backs. We stopped at several points along the way so that Rob could do some casting, but there was nothing to be had. We'd caught all we were going to catch.
The canal back to the parking area was much easier to negotiate with the water up, and I was able to park much closer. So, getting the boats out of the water was much easier.
It had been a tough day of catching, but a good day of fishing with an avid and skilled angler. Rob was fun, and knows his stuff. I'm looking forward to fishing with him again next year.
Target Species:
Redfish and Trout
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