Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
December 4, 2000
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 12/2/2000 by Capt. Butch Rickey

I wisely scheduled Monday as a day off to recover from the four day Thanksgiving Eat-Fest in Macon, and the tedious drive home.

Tuesday, I was back at it with my old friends Mike Gorga and Joe D'Angelo, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It was the first time for Mike's uncle Burt Gorga. Mike was going to do one trip with me this visit, then fish from a boat he rented from the Bait Shack for the rest of the week. The boys at the Bait Shack were very helpful in not only getting Mike set up with a boat, but arranging for mooring in Bonita Springs so that Mike could keep the boat on the water for the whole week. The price was right, too.

I wasn't sure what would be going on after the week of bad weather over the Thanksgiving holiday, but word on the dock was that bait had moved to the causeway. I figured as much. We first headed up the river so I could show Mike where to go for ladyfish, jack, and trout action extraordinare. We had extreme ladyfish action in the Shell Point area, and got one jack.

We headed back down to the causeway for shiners before heading up the Sound for snook. We went to the second span and watched for diving pelicans. The first throw yielded nothing. The second throw bagged a couple hundred nice baits. I should have been satisfied with that, but you know how us live bait guides are; never enough bait! I decided to throw one more time. At first, I thought the net was caught on something on the bottom, or I had thrown it into a black hole. But, then it began to come slowly off the bottom. It took everything I had to move it. I couldn't imagine what I had thrown the net over. The pull of the current and movement of the boat were about to jerk me out of the boat. I called the boys to help. Now, you have to picture this. I'm 250! Burt admitted to 270. Mike wouldn't admit to anything, but is a big, strong boy. And, Joe is the runt of the bunch of us. Well, it took all four of us pulling and tugging on the net to get it into the boat, and I couldn't believe my eyes. We had several hundred beautiful baits in the net, but we also had a net completely full of jellyfish! There had to be 500 pound of jellyfish in that net, and once we got it into the boat, you've never seen such a mess. Jellyfish everywhere. They plugged up the self bailing deck, and we had to scoop them out with the bait nets. Every shiner in the net suffocated before we could dig them out of all that slime. I decided we had enough bait, and we cleaned up and headed to the first snook stop.

The fish weren't in much of an eating mood, as I had expected after the passing of the front. We caught about 10 snook, 2 trout, and 2 redfish. We did get the Slam! Once the action stopped there, we headed to a redfish hole. The tide was still very low, and seemed not to be moving because of the constant north winds, but I did run up on the reds as I moved onto the flat. I knew the fish were there. But, getting them to eat was impossible. They just refused our offerings of choice ladyfish steaks. I gotta tell ya! If you can't get redfish to eat ladyfish steaks, they ain't' gonna eat anything! So, we tossed in the towel and headed home. It hadn't been a bad day overall, but it wasn't a day of big numbers that Mike has gotten used to.

Wednesday was reserved for Don and Val Gottschalk, of Delafield, Wisconsin. Although this would be their first BarHopp'R trip, Don and Val are veterans of many guide trips out of Goodland, in the Ten Thousand Islands. Val had chosen me from the myriad of guides out there, solely based upon the content of my website, and I was anxious about living up to her and Don's expectations.

We began our trip at 10 AM. I was at the ramp way early, and went ahead and scouted for bait. Bait was very tough, especially trying to handle the boat and throw the net around the causeway by myself, but when Don and Val arrived, I was baited up and ready to go.

We headed up the river for ladyfish/jack action. The big ladyfish were there. I demonstrated how to get the ladyfish into the boat, and told Don and Val that I didn't care if they smacked me in the face with a fish, as long as they got it into the boat. Well, don't you know, the first thing that happened was that Don hooked a big lady and smacked Val right in the side of the face with it as he jerked it into the boat. We had a good laugh over that, and Val had a bit of ladyfish slime on her cheek, but was none the worse for wear. We had plenty of nice fish there, and could have stayed and caught them all morning. Well, they are fun! But, after about four passes through the fish, we headed up to the Sound to go snook fishing.

I decided to check one of my favorite deep water winter spots that I hadn't checked for a while. Val got the first hit on a great big threadfin, and with me coaching in the background, put a beautiful 28 inch snook in the boat. Don and I were proud of her, as that was her first keeper snook. I missed a good hit a little later, and that was it for that hole. The fish were there, but just weren't really interested.

On to the next stop! We had great action at the second hole. Don predictably had trouble trying to get the hookset right, wanting to strike first, but finally got into the groove. Val, as the girls usually do, got into the groove pretty quickly. After all, she had the keeper snook in the boat. Anyway, we boated 19 snook and one redfish before we decided to head to the Waterfront Restaurant. Don's back was really bothering him, and he was quick to agree that it had been a great day and it was time to "get off his back".

Don and Val are looking for property here, and are very interested in Pine Island. They had stopped at the Waterfront the day before while they were out exploring, but had only had sodas. They were really impressed with the food there. They also told me that they had never caught fish like we had that day down in the Ten Thousand Island, and that really made my day. They promised I'd see them again soon. I'm looking forward to our next trip, because they were just great folks.

Thursday I spent in bed trying to sweat out a cold/flu. I could tell all day Wednesday that I was coming down with something, and by that night I was miserable. I hoped to shake it off in one day, but that was not to be.

I met my friend Bruce Boardman, Friday morning at eleven o'clock. I felt miserable, and knew I should be in bed, but I didn't have any alternate days to fish with Bruce, and his son-in-law Greg. We headed to the causeway for bait, but the tide was at the slack, and there were no shiners to be had. We did catch several dozen mojarra, which also make pretty good snook bait. I ran out to Marker 8, but as I approached I could see there were already two boats there. I asked the guys if they wanted to go up the river to catch ladyfish, and they were ready to go.

Fishing the bars at Shell Point, ladyfish were thick as usual, and Bruce quickly got into the groove. It took Greg a little while to figure it out, but once he did, he caught plenty. Bruce added a bonus pompano, and it was about as big a pompano as you'll see. We catch them occasionally in the river, and I wonder if I shouldn't go up there with some pompano jigs and shrimp one day and target them just to see what happens.

Once the boys got bored with the every cast ladyfish action we headed back out to the causeway. By now, the tide would be coming in. I don't know how many times I threw the net that morning, but it was more times than I had the energy for. Still no shiners. We headed to St. James Creek, and on the way I saw pelicans diving near Picnic Island, and decided to stop and check it out. Several throws netted us one shiner and plenty of pinfish. We moved on to St. James. There, we actually managed to catch several dozen nice shiners before they disappeared to who knows where. I was exhausted, frustrated, and not in a good mood, by the time we were done.

We headed to the first winter snook spot that has already given up some nice fish. But, it wasn't going to give up anything this day. At the next stop we had some descent action, but only managed to boat 8 or 9 snook. With snook action off, we decided to target reds. Several stops produced not so much as a strike. Finally, on the last stop of the day Bruce missed the first redfish, but boated the second, which was a nice keeper of about 5 pounds. Greg caught one of the biggest trout they'd seen at around 5 pounds. There should be plenty of those around any time, now.

Darkness was fast approaching so we headed home with a big pompano and one red in the cooler. Thankfully, it was enough to feed the gang! Bruce was nice enough to clean his own fish this time, and I cleaned the boat as darkness fell.

The weather forecast for next week looks dismal as of now. Cold and windy, with lows in the 40's most of the week. My mission is to shake this bug before I have to get back out there.

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