One Trip Before Christmas
Capt. Butch Rickey
January 12, 2012
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Report For Week Ending 12/24/11
I had one trip this week with a couple of great guys who vacation at the same RV park in Labelle. Mike Parsons is from Elmira, New York, and Bernard "Grif" Griffin comes from Kalispell, Montana. We fished out of Castaways Marina on Sanibel in the waters around Buck Key. We had an extremely low tide of -0.8 ft. at 7:40, and once it started coming in, it came hard. We had to drag our kayaks about 50 yards across wet grass to get to our first fishing spots.
I was looking for the outsized trout that are always present in the holes in the area, and that we'd caught the week before. The trout were there, but the big girls weren't interested in eating. The biggest we caught was 20 inches. The bite slowed there as the tide came in, and we moved on. At our next stop we were on more trout and a few redfish, as well as a couple of flounder. We kept moving along the edges of the holes, but steady action was hard to find.
Finally, I told the guys I was going to go search for a steady bite, and would call them as soon as I'd found it. I kept moving and casting to edges and corners, catching trout as I went. But, they were mostly small ones. Eventually, I did find a pretty good bite and a lot of slot fish, and called the boys in. Once they were there catching, I moved on to see if I could find a redfish or large trout bite. Much to my chagrin, I found neither for a long time. The fish were just off for some reason. I found a school of redfish, but couldn't get them to eat. Finally, I caught a nice keeper red, and knowing there had to be more of them about, called the boys in. Although I did have several more hits that were good enough to bend the weedguard on my lure, they weren't aggressive enough to get hooked. With the top of the tide around 2 PM, we headed for home.
It had been a beautiful day, even though the fish were a bit persnickety. We finished the day with around 4 dozen trout, several redfish, 2 flounder, and 2 ladyfish. Fishing from the kayaks is very relaxing and a lot of fun, and a great way to get close to nature..
Pine Island Sound Fishing Forecast:
Good if you're not fishing behind a cold front!
Target Species:
Redfish, trout and flounder
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