Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
November 12, 2000
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 11/11/2000 by Capt. Butch Rickey

It was another great week of fishing equally divided between old friends and new customers. With great mid-day high tides, it was once again time to turn our attentions to redfish.

I had the first two days of the week off, so I called my good friend Capt. Tommy Stevens, who runs Top Notch Charters in Sarasota, to see if maybe he had a hole in his schedule that would allow us a day of fishing. I hadn't fished with Tom in a long time, nor had I fished Sarasota Bay in a long time. Fortunately, Tom had Monday open, so he, his friend Capt. Chris Seger, who runs Tight Lines Charters in Sarasota, and I hit the water Monday morning at 6:30 AM to do some Top Notch fishing.

The tide was high very early, and we all knew we needed to get it done early. Tom headed his 21 ft. Kenner straight out to the beach for bait. It didn't take long to get bait in the well with Chris at the helm, me on the bait tray, and Tom throwing the net. We headed to the general area of Buttonwood Harbor.

From the time we pitched the first baits against the mangroves, we had action. We all caught fish. In the first couple of spots we hit, which were close together, I'd guess we each caught several snook, including several keepers, and a couple of nice reds. In fact, I think we spooked a school of reds we had right in front of us when we instantly hooked two fish.

When the action slowed we headed across to the east side of the bay where we found some more action on small snook. We saw redfish, but didn't find any that would eat. When that slowed, Tommy headed out to the Gulf through Longboat Pass, and had planned to run back down the beach looking for possible cobia action. Just outside the pass we saw birds working a large area. We quickly headed to them figuring they were working either mackerel or L.T.'s (Lil Tunny), and quickly found that it was large pods of L.T.'s everywhere. We were all hooked up immediately, but Chris and I both lost our fish to other fish hitting our baits as they slid up the lines after the strike. Tommy was able to get his fish out of the school and had several long runs. Those forked tail pelagics are real brutes.

We realized that our plans to run the beach were stifled as the wind had shifted around to the south with an approaching front and had the gulf pretty well kicked up. We headed for the ramp. It had been a great morning, and fun to spend the day with Tom and Chris. Chris runs both inshore and offshore boats, and seems like a real nice young man. Dittos for Tom! I'd say he's the best guide in the Sarasota area. He has a great nose for fish, and has done some great trips for customers I've referred to him.

Wednesday morning I was back in Ft. Myers for my trip with a BarHopp'R newcomer, Sal Paperone, and his twelve year old son, Wes, of Manlius, New York. We had a pretty good looking day with southeast wind at 15, and a good tide. I was looking for a good bite from something. I had planned to fish snook early and reds late in the tide, but the wind had the tide up higher than it was scheduled to be. By the time we finished catching bait at Picnic Island, the water was right for redfishing. I just had a feeling it would be good, even though we were coming up on a full moon.

The first hole we hit was the charm! I chummed with cut pinfish, and put out the baits, and it was no time before we had the fish going. We had great and steady action all morning long, and Sal and Wes stayed real busy. Young Wes was quite the little angler, and adapted to the new method of fishing quite quickly. Dad took a little longer. But, they both did great, and by the time we were done, they had boated a good 30 redfish and 1 snook! These were all beautiful fish ranging from 5 to 10 pounds.

Once the action slowed, we headed to the Waterfront Restaurant for a great lunch. There, Sal presented me with a very nice Syracuse Tee shirt and a beautiful Swiss Army knife in a case with his company name and logo on it. Thank you very much, Sal!

As good a day as Wednesday was, I could not have imagined that Thursday would be even better for my friends Dave and Donna Jaeger. This was their second BarHopp'R trip. Their first had been pretty much a teaching trip. They had asked me in their last email if I though I could get them each a Slam, and I told them I though we could. But, knowing that the reds would probably be right back there waiting on me again on Thursday, it was hard to think too much about running around trying to get a Slam, with all those redfish waiting to be fed!

After baiting up, we did hit one snook hole, but the water was already too high, being forced up by a pretty strong south/southeast wind at 20! Although we didn't get any snook there, we did catch 5 trout and a jack. From there I suggested we head to the flats for reds. I did stop at one other snook, but we immediately caught a redfish. It seemed to be an omen, and I headed to the redfish flat.

The wind was making it difficult even to get anchored. It didn't take long to get things going after anchoring, but we didn't have the good bite I was looking for. I knew I had lots of fish in front of me, and moved up about the length of a cast. I had no more than gotten set, and we hit two redfish on the first two casts, and my anchor pulled. I'm sure I was visibly upset, as I feared that we had completely blown the hole. By the time I got the anchor stuck again, we were right on top of the hole. I hoped that the reds had just moved back a little, and that turned out to be the case. We caught reds about as fast as we could go all morning.

If there was a low point in the morning, it would have to be when Dave lost my BogaGrip. Folks, I know some of you probably think I'm anal retentive about my gear, especially my rods and reels. But I'm really not. Everything I try to teach on my charters, down to the last little detail, is stuff I've learned from years of experience and expensive mistakes. The cost of good gear today is very high. Example: the BogaGrip at about $120.00. Everything I teach on my boat about how to handle tackle, land fish, etc., is designed to ultimately save my customers money and heartbreak when they either break my gear, or their own. Well, I had made a point of telling Dave to make sure he had the lanyard of the BogaGrip on his wrist before landing a fish with it, but I guess he got in a hurry, and failed to put it on. Don't you know he grabbed a big red over the side of the boat with it, and the fish jerked it out of his hand and swam away with it?? That's the kind of tough lesson my boat rules are designed to prevent. Not to long after that I saw Dave working on another red over the side of the boat with a $100 pair of Penn International pliers. I had to remind him that he had already learned one tough lesson, and that having to buy a pair of expensive pliers would be adding insult to injury. I think he realized then the importance of what I was trying to teach.

Lost BogaGrip not withstanding, it was a fantastic day. Dave and Donna finished the day with 33 reds as best we could count, plus the earlier fish. We had a ball! I think Donna's arms were tired. We headed to the Waterfront Restaurant, where I had picked them up, and had a great lunch.

Dave was a good sport about the BogaGrip. That night, around 7 PM, he showed up at the BarHopp'R fish camp with a brand new BogaGrip. He had his little girl with him, who was as pretty as she could be. Thanks, Dave!

I thought Friday would turn out to be a horribly windy day, but it turned out not to be, even though the front pushed through in late morning. It was my first trip with Brian Travis, of Cape Coral, who like the Jaegers, has been here for a while but hasn't had a whole lot of luck with the fishing. Brian's number one objective was to learn the how's, when's, where's, etc., of local fishing. The secondary emphasis was on catching fish. The wind was southwest and we were one day away from the full moon. I imagined that the catching might get tough, anyway.

The first order of business was bait. We headed to Picnic Island, where we found plenty of shiner, and some pinfish, but not enough pins to make me happy if we really got into the redfish. Once, I gather enough bait, I traded places with Brian, and tough him the BarHopp'R method of folding and casting the net, which definitely does not involve putting that big net all over my body as in the triple-load! Brian threw the net four of five times, and his first observation was that the 10 ft. net was much heavier and harder to handle than he imagined. But, each throw opened a little better than the preceding throw. Once Brian felt comfortable with the net, we headed up to Chino Island to collect a few more pinfish. The surprise was that the shiners are back. I haven't seen much in the way of shiners there in the last couple of months, but they were thick, and good sized, too.

The first thing I wanted to do was show Brian how to catch late season trout in the potholes. I took him to one of my favorite holes, but the southwest wind had kept the projected 0.0 low tide from happening. The water was much higher, and the trout were already on the move. I think he caught one or two undersized trout. I had also planned to take him to a couple of snook holes, but the water was coming so hard and fast that I figured it was best just to show him what to be looking for while the water was still down a bit. One of the best things a newcomer to the area can do to learn the topography of the flats is to go out in his boat on a winter dead low tide armed only with a push pole and/or trolling motor. It's important to leave the rods at home, so that you're not tempted to stop and fish. Then you go from place to place, observing things like holes adjacent to mangrove keys, troughs, potholes in the open flats, oyster bars, channels, and any other feature that might hold fish on different stages of the tide. It gives one a great advantage to know what the bottom looks like when everything is covered with water!

The final lesson was to be how to catch redfish on the open flats, as opposed to fishing the bushes. I wanted to get to the hole before the tide got so high that he couldn't see what made the spot so good. So, we were off to chase redfish. By now, we could see the leading edge of the approaching front, and I was concerned that we might have to deal with rain or storms. I knew that if the front pushed through before we were done fishing, it would likely shut the fish down. I wanted a few fish in the boat before that happened.

We saw redfish everywhere as we quietly moved into position on the flats with the trolling motor. They weren't particularly spooky, but did keep their distance. We knew we were on fish. I prepared the first batch of chum and baited up, and it wasn't long before Brian had his first long distance redfish on. After catching several and missing several Brian was quick to confess that he had often wondered when reading my fishing reports how folks could have so much trouble trying to set the hook on a fish. Predictably, he was having the same problem with striking early; before he was really tight on the fish, and he said he now understood! He did well and caught on quickly, though, and batted around 500 for the morning, putting 13 out of the 25 or so hits he had in the boat. He also got one snook on a tail hooked shiner for the Slam.

I had to move the boat two or three times as the wind shifted around with the coming front, and the fish moved away from us. We never saw rain, although it looked as if we could get wet any minute. At around eleven o'clock the wind abruptly shifted around to the north, and the fish quit biting immediately. It still looked threatening, so we elected to head for the Waterfront, which was close to the ramp, and have lunch. We were both starved and the huge burger they prepare was the order of the day. It's the best burger you'll ever eat anywhere, bar none!

Brian was a great student, and a super nice guy, and I made a new friend that day. We continued with our BS back at the docks. Brian also presented me with a fine bottle of adult sipping beverage, which I will use for a special occasion. What a great day!

Well, that's how the week went, gang. One week it's snook, the next it's reds. I let the tides determine what species I'm going to be targeting primarily. Next week, I'll be targeting those yard snook, as I'm taking the week off. Oh, I might manage to get out with one or two of my friends, and in fact, have a trip scheduled with my good friend Dave Latimer of St. Pete. We'll probably be fishing around Cockroach Bay area of Tampa Bay, and throwing plugs. I don't get to do that very often, and love to do it. So, I'll let you know about the play trips next week.

A final note. I have been remiss in following up with my wife's status report. Many of you have asked about Jean's condition, and many of you offered your prayers and support in her time of need. We are eternally grateful for that. She is now done with her treatments, and on the mend. She is CLEAN! Also, my good friend Mike Howard, who I mentioned not long ago, is also recuperating nicely from his lung cancer and surgery. He is now in the radiation stage and can't wait to get back down here and fish. I'm hoping to take him out for a day on the water (just he and me) during Christmas week, which I'm taking off. Who says prayer doesn't work?

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