Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
June 8, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 6/6/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Once again the weather was a factor, as the sagging jet stream pushed another front into Florida midweek. I managed to run three trips, and they were pretty good ones.

Monday was my first trip with Don Barfield, of Slidell, Louisiana. Don trailered his 22 ft. boat all the way down for a week of fishing, while his wife and son went to Korea. I met Don at the Waterfront Restaurant in St. James City, since he was staying just down the street. We headed straight up to the flats near Keesel’s and had tons of bait in a couple of throws.

Since Don has great redfish and trout fishing in his native waters, we decided to concentrate our efforts on snook. The breeze was around 10 from the southwest, which would make chasing the large schools of snook on the beaches very uncomfortable. I headed for a hole where I knew there were large numbers of large snook. The challenge would be to get them to eat.

I did a lot of chumming with live shiners, and we had a bite, but not a great one. We caught around 10 snook and a trout, before the bite subsided, and Don was not only a good fisherman, but a lot of fun. For the rest of the morning, it was hard to get anything going. We found redfish in two different places, but they didn’t want to eat. We did manage a couple more snook before the tide was done.

We finished with a great lunch at the Waterfront, and then took the Talon down the canal to where he boat was moored, and transferred the leftover bait to Don’s boat. He told me when I saw him the next morning that he had gone out late and managed to catch a few snook with it.

Tuesday, my friend Mike May was back with his son Dave for another run at the fish while Dave was in town. The wind was up to nearly 20 mostly from the south/southeast, as the front settled in to north Florida. We headed straight to Keesel’s for bait, where we met Don Barfield in his boat. With about four throws of the net, we had plenty of bait for both boats.

We had a great bite at the first stop, and even with lots of misses, Mike and Dave managed to put 2 nice mangrove snappers, a nice trout, and over a dozen snook in the boat. Once we moved on it was much tougher to get something going, but we did catch a few more snook in Ding Darling, as well as a grouper, and a redfish gave the boys the Slam. It was a pretty good day on a slow tide, and Mike and Dave are always lots of fun to be with.

With the southerly winds came showers and thunderstorms brewing just along the coast and moving inland, and the treat of weather kept me off the water Wednesday and Thursday. Friday looked pretty good for my first of two trips with Dave Adair. We couldn’t get outside, but at least the threat of rain was minimal, and we could fish. I had told Dave we had an absolutely horrible tide, with the water hardly moving all day long, and that the fishing would be tough. He didn’t let that stop him, and I’m glad he didn’t.

Of course, we had some confusion first thing in the morning! I was to pick Dave up at the Sanibel Sonesta, just around the corner from the ramp. I had changed props the night before, going from a 20 pitch 4 blade prop to a 21 pitch 14” 3 blade prop. I didn’t anticipate any problems, and decided to leave the testing to the following morning.

I launched, and took a quick ride. The prop worked well once the Talon was up on step, but seemed to want to blow out while coming out of the hole. Of course, my jackplate which I never have to use with the 4 blade prop, didn’t work, and I couldn’t lower the motor to see if that would alleviate the problem. Anyway, when I went by the big dock at the Sonesta, there was no Dave. That got me to thinking and wondering if I had misunderstood him the night before. After all, I was half asleep! So, I decided to make a quick trip to the Waterfront Restaurant to be sure he wasn’t standing there waiting on me. Of course, he wasn’t there, and I hurried back to the ramp. I had tried to call him from the Waterfront, and got no answer. As I came down off step I heard my cellphone ringing. It was Dave wanting to know where I was. Of course, we had missed each other. He had seen my van at the ramp, and knew I was in the water. He had gone back to his room to get his cell, and I had missed him. Well, all’s well that ends well.

After loading up with lots of bait at Keesel’s, we were off to the first snook hole. Expecting things to be very tough, I did a lot of chumming, and to my surprise the snook responded. We had a great bite, and Dave caught lots of quality snook in the 6 to 8.5 pound range. I’m not sure how many Dave caught at that first hole, but they included a 6, a 6.5, a 7, a 7.5, an 8, and an 8.5 pound snook! He also caught a nice red, a trout for the Slam, and a big stingray.

The fishing for the rest of the day was tough, but Dave did manage a few more snook, and we missed several redfish on one flat. Dave was also a very skilled angler, and it’s always fun to fish with folks like that. We had a great time.

Next week we have much better tides, and I have four trips so far. The report for next week will hopefully be a great one.

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