A day of great bait, tough bite, and dodging weather!
Capt. Butch Rickey
June 25, 2008
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Week Ending 6/21/08
It was a vacation week for me, but I did run one trip with Harry Krukenberg and his daughter Allison, from the great state of Ohio. I first fished with Harry and Aly last summer, along with his Dad Herman. They were great folks, and I wouldn't have passed up a chance to fish with Harry and Aly again. I was disappointed to hear that Harry wasn't able to make it for this trip.
Our trip was on Wednesday, and I had been off to weddings in Georgia, and such, and not on the water in almost two weeks. There were only a handful of guides at the ramp, and they all told me there was no bait to be had save for some big threadfins under the bridge or tiny little new hatch shiners that aren't big enough to toss. Not what I wanted to hear!
I headed out to the Sanibel Ramp to pick up. With Harry and Aly aboard, I decided to forego anything close to the ramp, and while close decided to go take a look at the beach. But, oh boy! As we rounded the point at the light house, the water got way to rough to try to catch bait in. So, I headed up to Chino Island, where there normally will be bait until November, once it shows up there.
But, before we got far we saw storm cells coming on shore and heading right at us. I ran out of my way and was able to skirt them, and we only got a few drops on us. But, by the time we were near St. James City there were more coming and there was lightning in them. We ducked in at the Waterfront Restaurant to stay out of the weather. After a while it seemed to be clearing out and looked pretty good to the north, where we would fish. We headed back out toward Chino.
I settled down on the flat and sat for a minute, and suddenly we had school of glass minnows, tiny threadfins, and shiners spraying everywhere. The trout were there to feed on them, and were busting the pods all over the place. Over the years it's been my experience that there is usually big bait hiding under the pods of small bait on the surface. I hoped that would be the case, now.
We set about trying to get close enough to one of the big bait pods to chum them right up to us. It took a while, but with Harry making long tosses he was able to steer the bait right to the boat. Casting on the surface stuff did reveal there were a few large baits underneath. So, our job was to try to get it chummed in well enough to catch lots of it.
The water was really running out hard, although the tide chart showed no such activity. Harry was having to toss the chum near the stern, so that I could catch bait off the bow. Once I hit good bait once, I knew we'd done it, and where to throw. We loaded up, and bait would no longer be an issue. The tide would be!
The tide would only move about a foot over six hours, however, it would be a big tide because it was beginning at a half-high point.
The water was moving by the time we got to our first stop. As it turned out, it would be the best stop of the day. Harry and Aly caught around half dozen snook there, and lost several. We also had quite a few scaled baits. We hit quite a few other great spots, but it was nothing doing but more scaled baits.
With nothing wanting to play I decided to make a big move to another area and see if the results would be any different. We finally managed to catch one nice redfish, and had more scaled baits. But, before we could put together more fish the weather blew up on us again, and we ran back to the Waterfront to safety. It was a big ugly looking cell coming onshore, and I didn't want anything to do with it. After an absolutely fabulous lunch, which for me was shrimp and snowcrab chimmechangas topped with JD's magic black bean and mango salsa, we headed back out.
The tide was now outgoing, and I had just the spot in mind. It was now time to fish it, as the wind would be at our backs and the current in our faces. The snook were there all right, but we let every one of them that ate, get away. That included a double. And, of course there were more scaled baits.
By around 2 PM we could see that weather was again going to be an issue, and headed in. I dropped Harry and Aly back at their ramp, and took off for Punta Rassa with more weather coming in behind me. I managed to get the boat cleaned and put away just as the weather moved in.
It had been an interesting day dealing with volatile weather and dealing with fish that were lockjawed on the full moon. But, Harry being an easy going guy didn't let the circumstances bother him one bit, and we had a good time. We had been seriously canceling our trip that morning because of the weather. But, canceling would have meant our makeup trip would be on a horrible tide, and at the end of the day we were glad we'd decided to go with it.
We're still getting late season cold fronts that are reversing our weather patterns and keeping us away from some of our best fishing. But, we desperately need the rain.
Target Species:
Snook and redfish
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