Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
April 24, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 4/19/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

For the first time this year we had beautiful weather all week long, and I actually got to run all six trips I had on the books. For the most part, fishing was very good. So were the tides. The biggest negative factor was the full moon, but things worked out well.

The first trip of the week was on Sunday with Dave and Susan Tarabcik, of Valley Stream, New York. I had rescheduled Dave and Susan from the previous Friday, when we had winds gusting to 33 MPH. Susan told me during the trip that she was actually in the car crying over the thought of going out in all that wind. She had been physically ill on the trip down, while flying over the same weather front. The plane kept hitting no air pockets, and falling out of the sky! Poor girl. She said she was so thankful that I had canceled the day and moved them to Sunday. The only problem in doing so was that we had traded a day with a relatively poor tide, but with an approaching front and brutal south wind, and almost certain fantastic fishing, for a day with a good tide, and brisk north wind, and fish that would certainly be lockjawed after the passing front. Yes, these things are quite predictable!

It's a good thing Dave and Susan were such great folks, because it was a tough day of catching. We got bait at Picnic Island, and after putting those hundreds of baitfish in the well, there weren't many more that came. We fished hard, and hit some great snook and redfish spots. We were all over the snook early, but they weren't about to touch a bait. They missed the only two snook that were dumb enough to bite, and missed two trout. They did catch a big ladyfish and a gaftop sail catfish. Later on the tide we hit one of my favorite redfish flats, and I found a huge school of reds numbering well into the hundreds, but with of all those fish in front of us, we only got three to hit, and got one into the boat.

It was indeed a tough day, but we had a great time out there, and I guess Dave and Susan knew I had worked hard trying to make something happen for them, as they were very generous with their tip. Thanks, guys!

Monday and Tuesday belonged to Randy and Scott Roeper, as did Friday. These were my first trips with the Roeper gang, and all in all, they went very well. I had to pick them up in Safety Harbor, on North Captiva, which makes for a very long day for me. It also means that I have to catch bait by myself, which I don't like to do. Catching bait is so much easier and quicker when you have someone there with you who can keep the chum line going.

Monday, I had Randy, Scott, and Scott's son Jake, who was a real hard-core little fisherman! I'm going to skip the details, as we were still under the influence of the passing front, and the fish weren't about to eat, but I'll tell you that we managed to catch only 2 redfish and 2 snook. The upside was that they did have enough fish to feed the gang, which can be important on North Captiva, as there aren't any grocery stores there!

Tuesday was a different day for the Roepers, now with Scott's son Ben. It was a great day! I caught bait at Picnic Island by myself very easily, and called Randy and told him I was on the way. I picked the boys up at the shore in front of the runway on North Captiva, and we were off. I had a different game plan from Monday. I headed to one of my favorite spring snook spots, and the snook were there. They weren't eating well, but we did catch a half dozen or so, including fish of 27 and 28 inches. We also caught around two dozen nice trout to nearly 4 pounds in the same area.

Once that action was over, we headed to one of my favorite redfish holes. Once again, I found tons of redfish there, and set out to chum them into a feeding frenzy. I don't know if what we did would qualify as a feeding frenzy, but we did manage to catch 12 or 13 big redfish to 11 pounds in about an hour and a half. That, along with the couple dozen trout, and half dozen snook, makes for a pretty darned good day of fishing.

Wednesday, I had my first trip with Mike and Elaina Connett, of Crown City, Ohio. Mike is a hunting guide back in Ohio, and I think has also done some fish guiding.

We headed straight to Chino Island for bait, and after some chumming, were baited up in two throws of my 10 ft. TrueSpread net. We were ready for some fission.

I decided to go outside and check to see if any early season snook or trout were around. The snook weren't there, but we did catch several trout to about three and a half pounds. We hit a couple of spots outside, but the snook weren't there or cooperating.

We came back inside and settled on one of my favorite redfish flats. The redfish were all over the place, but getting them to eat was not easy. We managed to catch 4 or 5 of the bronze beauties to 9 pounds. We finished the day chasing snook, and managed to catch 4, including one keeper.

All in all, it was a very good day. We got the Slam! Mike and Elaina were great folks, and Mike gave me a pin honoring veterans. Mike is a retired Air Force officer, and I did a four year tour with the Force, so that meant a great deal to me. We had a great time, and I look forward to their return.

Thursday I had my first of two scheduled trips this month with Dan and Barb Diver, recently relocated to Naples. What a cool name! Dan Diver! And, what nice folks!

We headed to Picnic Island where we met my best friend Capt. Butch Boteler, to catch bait. It didn't take us very long to have enough bait for both boats.

Once again, we headed outside to different spots to check on early season snook and trout. We did manage one small snook and a mangrove snapper. Dan also got a beautiful speckled trout of nearly 4 pounds!

Back inside we concentrated on redfish for a couple of hours on one of my favorite flats. The reds were there in big numbers, but didn't want to eat. Very frustrating. Actually, we did have 7 good hits, but only managed to convert two of them into fish into the boat. The biggest was five and a half pounds.

From there we turned our attention back to snook, and using a technique I have only used a few times before, we managed to get the snook to eat. Dan and Barb managed a dozen or more nice snook to 27 inches, and that made our day and gave us the Slam.

Friday, I had a two boat trip with Scott Roeper and his family, who were up still up on North Captiva. Randy was originally supposed to have been part of the gang, but circumstances forced him to bow out. So, Scott, brought along his beautiful wife Christen, daughter Jennifer, sons Ben and Jake, and father-in-law, Bob. The second boat was of course, my bud Capt. Butch Boteler.

Butch and I met at Picnic Island at seven o'clock. Actually, I was already there when Butch arrived. There were no less than 20 guides on the flats chumming for bait! Well, it was Good Friday! Butch was coming from St. James City, and settled to an idle as he approached the fleet. As he idled through, I could hear all the guides bitching and moaning about him coming through on his gas motor. They were bouncing comments from boat to boat like, "Moron!" "He doesn't have a clue!" "What an A**hole!" I was standing there on the bow of the Talon in amazement. My God, guys! Get a life! Are you all also members of the club that believes you can't catch a fish with a banana in the boat!!?? But, I knew Butch was going to come and tie up next to me, and that all the guides would find me guilty by association.

Butch didn't pull up on someone with his Mercury blazing! That would have been different. To think that idling through the fleet on your big motor would scare everyone's bait away is sheer folly!! But, some folks insist on believing what they believe, whether there are grounds for it, or not. So, on those grounds, I reamed his ass! I told him he just couldn't do that as long as there are guys out there who believe he's scaring away their bait. And, I also explained to him that I have to work with the rest of the guides, and want to get along with them. Butch apologized, although he didn't understand what all the fuss was about. I explained to him that a particular cousin of mine used to bitch at me for folding my net on the deck of my boat and rattling the leads on the deck. His contention was that I was scaring everyone's bait away. It apparently never occurred to him that I was catching just as much bait in as little time as anyone else. Geez! Come on, gang. The bait just isn't that spooky. They're more interested in eating.

Anyway, after all that hub-bub, we caught bait quickly and were off to North Captiva to pick up the Roepers. Once we arrived, Scott put me with his lovely wife Christen, his daughter Jennifer, and father-in-law Bob. He was going to fish with his sons Jake and Ben, with Butch Boteler. I teased him that now that I had taught the three of them how to catch our fish, he was going to try to beat me in our little private fishing tournament.

Butch and I both headed outside to look for those spawning trout that I knew would be showing up anytime. Man, did we find them. We caught beautiful trout as quickly as we could rebait our hooks. We could have stayed out there and caught them for the whole trip, but Bob's knee was bothering him because of the bumpy water, and I knew Scott had money on biggest fish, most fish, etc., so I wanted to go inside and try to put away the big fish prize. We left the beach with 36 trout caught, and went in search of redfish.

I Power Poled on one of my favorite redfish flats and began my chumming routine. Before long, Butch came to join us nearby. They caught nothing, and decided to go snooking. I knew we could get the reds going with some patience, and we did. We had 10 big hits. One broke off on the hookset, one took off for Mexico and eventually managed to cut us off on a tree, they missed 6 outright, and boated only 2 reds. But, one was a 12 pound beauty that I knew had the big fish prize wrapped up. Jennifer reeled the big red in, and I told her that her dad would be proud of her catching it, but not very happy that she did! We also got one snook to give us the Slam.

It was a great day, and we all had lots of fun. Kristen needed to get back earlier than the guys, so I dropped everyone at the runway on North Captiva and headed to the Waterfront for lunch. Butch met me there later. Considering that it was a very busy Good Friday on the water, it really was a good day.

Saturday morning I was at the ramp early to meet my old friend John Hitt. It's a good thing I was, as there was already a line, and I sat for a long time before I was able to launch the Talon. I knew it would be a real zoo on the water on this day, but I also knew where the trout were, and John just loves to trout fish. I also knew I could get him a few redfish more than likely. It would just depend on how much they had been run over by the time we got to them.

John and I headed to Picnic Island, where there was a fleet of well over 20 boats there all trying to catch bait. We were baited up in short order. After giving John a quick refresher on throwing the net, we were off to catch trout.

The trout were thick on the beach. I was catching them on shiners, and John was catching on a green currlytail jig just as fast as we could go. A boat joined us with two fly fishermen aboard. They cold see us catching, and moved as close as they dared, but they weren't catching. I knew John wouldn't mind if they joined us, and I didn't need to be fishing, anyway, so I invited them to anchor next to us and join in the fun. I had the fish chummed into a frenzy.

I guess they were quite shocked that I invited them in, but there were enough fish for several boats to catch, and it seemed to be the thing to do. The anglers turned out to be John and his son Sean, from Clearwater. The walked through the gates of flyfishing heaven with us, as they caught trout after trout on green and white clousers. In fact, they even had 6 doubles the last I heard. I was really tickled to see they having so much fun, as was John.

After catching God knows how many trout, even on topwater plugs, John and I decided to head inside and try for some redfish. We said good-bye to our friends, and took off. It took some chumming and a couple of moves, but I finally found the fish willing to eat. We had 12 good hits, and John boated 8 redfish to 7 pounds. That was a school of smaller fish than I usually find on that flat. They usually run 8 to 12 pounds. John had a good time, and as he said, the reds had attitude. The 2 snook we'd caught on the beach had completed the Slam, and we were happy.

We headed in early enough to allow John to get to an Easter church service, and hopefully me to get out of the water quickly, but I had to sit in line for some time. It wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been later in the afternoon. Geez! There were still people launching!!

So, for the most part it was a great week, full of great fishing and great folks. What more could one ask?

Next week the weather should continue good. The tides are poor, though, so it's anyone's guess how it will go.

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