Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
October 14, 2001
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

FISHING REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 10/6/2001 by Capt. Butch Rickey

There are three trips to talk about this week.

The first trip was a short fun trip with my good buddy Butch Boteler. He had been on a great snook bite the day before, and wanted to take me back to the scene of the crime for more action. He thought he'd found the promised land. I knew that it was nothing more than the great bite on an approaching front, and now that it had passed through and the wind switched to the north, there would be no bite. I explained the mechanics of weather to Butch, and we decided to go anyway. It was blowing like hell, and I figured we could give it a shot to make him happy, and if the fish predictably didn't bite, come back home and watch football.

We gathered bait and headed to his spot. It is a beautifully snooky looking place, but it would only give up a couple of reluctant hits, one snook and one jack on this morning. Butch just couldn't stop talking about how many big snook he'd caught and broke off there just a day before.

Thursday was a research trip to find redfish for my long time customer Dick Witherow on Friday. I invited my old friend/customer Lew Joseph, and of course, Butch Boteler. Lew was interested in getting his first ride in a Talon. I met Lew at the ramp, and we headed to St. James City to pick up Butch at his canal home in Cherry Estates. Since there is a route out of there that dumps you at the second set of powerlines near Chino Island, I elected to head to Chino for bait. Small threadfins and pinfish were thick, and made a real mess of the net.

We first headed up to North Captiva to check out the two new passes that were cut through the island by tropical storm Gabrielle. They're about a block apart, and littered many fallen Australian Pine trees on the Fosters flat inside, and in effect, created three islands. There were a lot of boaters and jet skiers around, so we didn't hang around or attempt to fish. Instead, we headed south to check out Blind Pass. Mother Nature has indeed done what man and his $300,000 couldn't, or wouldn't do properly; open Blind Pass. It is shallow, but it is flowing water once again. We couldn't get through, so we headed back around inside so we could come in from the Sound side and get a closer look. The tide was still fairly low, but incoming, and we were able to navigate almost up to the rocks before running out of floatable water. We anchored and tried to drown a few baits, but never had a hit. I, as I'm sure do others, just pray the pass will stay open and continue to deepen itself. If that happens, it will once again be a great snook fishery during the summer months.

From there we went in pursuit of redfish, and found them. We didn't have a spectacular bite, but we were certainly on the fish, and they were eating our pinfish baits. We caught about a dozen nice reds to 28 inches, and a jack crevalle. I felt very confident the fish would be right back there on Friday on the same tide for Dick.

I met my old friend Dick Witherow, Friday morning at 10:00 AM. We would fish the full incoming tide. It was good to see Dick, as I hadn't fished with him in at least a couple of years. Dick usually doesn't have the luxury of much advance notice as to when he will be able to come down and fish, and I have been booked every time he has called me in the last couple of years. I've had to refer him to my guide friends. I assured him that would probably not be the case in the economy we now face.

We headed to Tarpon Bay flats in hopes of catching good bait. There was plenty of bait there, but it was a mixture of small threadfins, small shiners, and pinfish. We loaded up and headed to a spot in Ding Darling that I figured would be full of snook moving back inside from the beaches and passes. I guess I was wrong, as we only caught one jack crevalle.

From there we headed to one of my favorite fall/winter/spring potholes. I had it on good authority from my friend and customer David Jaeger that the snook were back in the pothole, as well as big trout. Well, perhaps I got there too late, but I don't think so. I suspect the fish were there, but not eating. We caught one nice trout.

From the pothole we headed north to a flat where reds often congregate. As I taxied the Talon in at slow speed with flaps down, we had redfish pushing all over. The redfish were there all right, but we couldn't get them to eat our baits. In fact, we could see them pushing wakes right through my chum, and not even stopping to check it out. Very odd!

At our next stop we couldn't see the reds as we approached, but I knew they were there. We fished them hard, and repeatedly had redfish swim within 20 feet of the Talon. That's unusual, for sure. They didn't seem to mind that we were there, at all. Perhaps they like the seafoam color or the quietness of the Talon. We were on plenty of fish, but they just didn't seem to be in an eating mood. We managed to catch about half dozen nice redfish and one snook before the tide was done. We also lost our breeze somewhere along the way, and with no air moving, the heat was brutal. It really knocked the wind out of our sails, and once the bite slowed, Dick and I were ready to head in. We didn't catch a bunch of fish, but we did catch some nice reds, and Dick seemed to be happy with that.

Well, only one more week until my schedule gets busy, again. I sure hope the tropics behave. I need to run every trip I have on the books, but the hurricane season isn't over until November.

FISHING REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 9/29/2001 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Again this week the trips I had scheduled fell victim to bad weather in the big front that came through late in the week. So, there are no trips to report.

The good news is that I took delivery of my new Talon F-16 on Wednesday, and to Talon's credit, the boat is perfect. Everything works as designed, and the fit and finish are just beautiful. My old Yamaha developed a false horn that would come on with the key, and Talon had that disabled.

I put the boat in the water Thursday in the wind and rain, just long enough to make sure the engine was indeed going to run properly under load. I had a very good young mechanic named Josh Rackay come to my home and quickly determined that the oil bypass switch was the culprit. Fortunately, I had a spare laying around. I launched her again Saturday morning, again in wind and rain, but I could see on the radar the front was about passed us. I ran her for several hours. The boat ran perfectly, and the only thing that I could see that might need changing is the prop. The 20 pitch Turbo four blade prop was too much prop, and the motor couldn't pull proper RPM at full throttle. I replaced it with an 18 pitch that night, which turned out to be just about perfect.

Barring unforeseen weather events, I will be getting very busy in another week or so. Then we can get back to writing descent fishing reports.

FISHING REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 9/22/2001 by Capt. Butch Rickey

It was a tough week of fishing. Gabrielle left the water in a mess. It looks like black coffee and is full of seaweed everywhere you go. Plus, there is tremendous fresh water intrusion from the rivers. It may take a while for things to get back to normal.

Monday was a beautiful day for my old friends Giles Boudreau and his partner Dave Hench, of Ft. Lauderdale, and a perfect day for their first ride in a Talon. Giles and Dave wanted to chase redfish, since they don't catch many reds on their own. With reds as our target, I wanted to find some ladyfish to steak up for bait. We went in pursuit of them, but didn't find the first one. With no ladyfish, we had to catch bait, and found plenty of pinfish of all sizes, as well as a handful of shiners at Picnic Island.

Once loaded with bait, we were off to look for redfish. We found the fish, but they weren't in their usual feeding mood for such a good tide. We did catch a few; seven I think, up to 28 inches, as well as a nice trout and a big jack crevalle, but we didn't knock them out. We had fun with them, though.

We finished the day at the Waterfront Restaurant. Giles and Dave couldn't say enough good things about the Talon F-16. They were totally impressed with the ultra soft and dry ride, and the enormous amount of deck space and fishability. They both suffer from back problems, and admitted to me that they used to suffer in the old BarHopp'R. Their days of suffering with their backs are over on the Talon.

Tuesday was an equally enlightening day for my old buddy Russ Hubbard. He was over with his son David, and friend Mike. We went looking for ladyfish first thing, and from the time I took off, Russ was beaming from ear to ear over the Talon. We not only didn't find ladyfish, but after gathering bait, we didn't find redfish, or anything else, either. We first fished a spot in Tarpon Bay that has been full of redfish, but on this day there was so much seaweed coming in on the fast moving tide that you could nearly walk across it. It was awful, and made it impossible to fish. We tried bait on the bottom and under corks, and couldn't keep bait clean long enough for it to get eaten. After one big jack, we gave up on the area.

We found redfish, but they refused to eat. We hooked only one, and broke it off on the hookset. It was the same thing everywhere we went. The only thing we could catch was catfish, and we caught plenty of them! We finally tossed in the towel, and headed for the Waterfront. Russ, who has a very bad back and always suffered on our many trips together, was all smiles even without fish, because his back felt just great and he hadn't gotten a drop of water on him all morning. He was just amazed. He congratulated me repeatedly on my choice of boats.

I was supposed to do a fly fishing trip with Howard Salt on Wednesday. He had been scheduled to leave on Tuesday, the day of the terrorist attack on our cities, and was unable to even get here. We rescheduled his trip for next month.

Thursday, I took the Talon to St. James City and picked up my old fishing buddy, Butch Boteler at his back door in Cherry Estates. It was time for him to take a ride on, and fish from the Talon. Butch can be very critical of boats, and I was eager to find out what he would think of the Talon. As I headed for Picnic island to catch bait I took the Mercury to 5,000 RPM, as fast as I had run it to that point. Butch was thrilled with the acceleration and speed of the boat. He was amazed at how the hull seems to get up on top of the chop and gently dance over it like it's riding on a cushion of air. Perhaps it is! When I demonstrated the turning ability of the cat hull I nearly scared Butch to death. I didn't tell him it was coming, and he just couldn't believe a boat could turn that hard, stay perfectly level, not blow the prop out, or try to swap ends.

The fishing wasn't much better than it had been on the last trip. We fished several good areas with both live bait and artificials, and only managed to catch one snook, one redfish, and one jack. We had a great time, though, as good fishing friends always do no matter what. And, Butch Boteler is trying to figure out how he can squeeze a Talon into his new budget.

That was it for the week. My own Talon is supposed to finally be ready on Monday. Here's hoping!

The downturn in business because of the slow economy, and now further because of the tragedy of September 11, has had me and some of my friends brainstorming how we can generate trips, generate cash flow, and therefore stay in business through the tough times we have ahead of us. Here are the first two ideas I will put forward. First, since December and January are normally my only slow months of the year, I am fearful of just how slow they could be this year. I am going to roll back the cost of my half day trip to last year's rate of $325 for anyone booking in December and January. Further, if you would like to prepay your trip, no matter when you have it booked, either in lump sum, or in three or four installments, I will discount the trip by $25. With the market in such a slump and interest rates still declining, that's a much better return on your trip fee than leaving it in the bank until trip time.

So, come on folks. It's time to get out and enjoy your favorite pastime, in your favorite vacation destination. Let's show Osama Bin Lunatic that he can't beat us with economic terrorism, either.

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