Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
July 7, 2003
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 7/5/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

For the first time in a while, weather wasn't a major factor this week. It was a week of high, but not very strong tides, and we managed to do pretty well with the redfish on the four trips that I ran.

My old fishing buddy Russ Hubbard was first up on Monday. One of the customers he had planned to bring had to cancel at the last minute, so his son David was able to join him, instead. We were also joined by Ed Weaver, who works for Stephens Industries down in Naples. I've been fishing with David since he was about six, and haven't seen him in nearly two years. I was shocked at what a fine looking young man he has become. He's also turned into a very skilled young angler thanks to his dad Russ, and maybe me to a lesser degree.

We began with bait up at Kiesel's flats. After hearing over the weekend that bait had disappeared, I was concerned that we may find none, but it was there. It was just a bit harder to get. I kept plenty of pinfish, too, in case the reds showed a preference for them.

From bait we went right to snook fishing, and were greeted by some nice snook. The boys caught 10 or so, including fish of 7, 8, and 9 pounds. The last big one was caught after we had turned our attention to redfish, and were fishing with cut pinfish. She hit a big pinfish head, and put up a great fight. The boys also caught 10 or so nice redfish, to round out a very nice day of fishing. As usual, we finished the day with a terrific lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant.

Tuesday's trip came with great anticipation, and some trepidation. You see, it was my first trip with my friend Floyd "Bubba" Baker, whom I've been talking to on the email for some 5 years. We met years ago at the Punta Rassa ramp after a day of fishing, and have been in contact ever since. I felt like I knew Bubba, and he has been wanting to fish with me for a long time. In fact, he has booked a couple of trips, and his employer caused him to cancel, by canceling his vacation at the last minute. Bubba is in law enforcement in Dade Country, and has been knee deep in homeland security stuff since 9/11! This was the day we would finally get to fish together, along with his best friend Terry Minor, and I was just a big nervous. I hoped that the fish, and I, would live up to his expectations.

Bubba and Terry were coming from San Padre Island, up north of Little Gasparilla Island on Gasparilla Sound. It's only about 35 miles as a crow flies, but quite another story by car. The boys were a bit late because the ride and traffic are hard to predict. We headed straight to Kiesel's flat in search of bait, and although tougher than it had been, we got plenty.

I decided to head north from there in search of snook. We found a few small fish, but not a great bite or anything big. We moved on. At the next stop things were better, and we caught some nice snook. Bubba lost a monster snook at boatside because he didn't pressure the fish enough. I was trying to coach him on how to kick the big snook's butt, but he was just reluctant to put the pressure on the fish that I was telling him to put. As it turned out, the fish was on the leader (hook inside mouth), and it rubbed through just as it was about to the boat. I almost had my hand on the leader, and Bubba got a good look at the beg female, but she wound up swimming triumphantly away, showing us her backside in defiance. Bubba wasn't a happy camper!!

As the tide flooded the flats we turned our attentions to redfish, and were able to get them to come to the chum. We got a good bite going, and Bubba and Terry had a blast all day long bashing each other as they missed fish. They certainly kept me entertained. Of course, I got some bashing, as well. Even with the misses, the boys managed to catch quite a few nice reds, but I don't know the number, and finished with somewhere between 12 and 15 snook. It was a good day. Both the boys agreed that it was more of either species than either of them had caught in a week of fishing by themselves. I was happy that they were happy.

We finished the day at the Waterfront Restaurant, where we recounted the day's fun, and made plans for my visit with them at San Padre Island for July 4th. I was very excited about that.

Wednesday, I was with my old friend Howard Salt, of Algonquin, Illinois, who loves to flyfish, and fishes all over the world. Barring the pure professionals like Chico or Flip, Howard is the best flycaster I've ever had the pleasure of watching. But, with the water near coffee black, I knew sight fishing opportunities would be non-existent. Also, it had been pretty breezy for most of the week, thank God, as it had kept us from disappearing into our own stewing juices. But, I knew it could complicate fly fishing if it kicked. We caught bait at Kiesel's with the intent of establishing the presence of fish with it, and then trying the fly. Although bait was there, it continued to thin out.

We took our shiners and went to where I'd been doing pretty well on snook all week. I knew the fish were there, but we had a slack tide. After catching several I suggested that Howard blind cast along the shore with his flyrod, hoping we could trick a snook or two. The wind had kicked enough to make handling the boat with the pushpole difficult, but Howard is such a great caster it didn't bother him at all. We fished a pretty good stretch of snooky cover without a take, but with several follows, and then turned our attention to redfish with bait. The plan was to try to get the reds going with cut bait, then switch to fly if we got a good bite going.

We did get a bite going, but not long into it a squall blew up, and seemed to be coming on shore right to us. We decided to head to the Green Flash for cover, as it was only a few miles away. We had caught a half dozen or so reds at that point, and the fish were eating pretty well, but safety is always first. We enjoyed a great lunch there, and decided to head on in afterwards, as the weather was looking pretty unstable. We hadn't slayed the fish, but we got several snook and some nice reds, and Howard got to wave the longrod for a while, and nearly tricked a few. I look forward to his return in the fall.

Although Friday began as a tough day, it turned into a great day for my new customers Jeff Cantin, and his beautiful wife Cheryl, and their eight year old son Max. We had a dead tide for most of the morning, so I decided to gamble with bait, and begin later in the morning at eight o'clock. I figured that the tide would be about ready to move once we had finished catching bait. The Cantins were a half hour late, as they were coming from Port Charlotte, and didn't anticipate the heavy traffic at that hour of the morning.

We were at Kiesel's flat by around 9, and I threw the 10 foot Caloosa 1/4 inch net until I was blue in the face. No shiners! My good friends/customers John Hitt, from Orlando, and Bob Brockway from Pompano Beach were also on the flat, and weren't fairing any better. John was enjoying his second day in his new Coastline 22, and Bob had been here for most of the week with his 18 foot Hewes. So, the long and short of it is that we didn't get any shiners, and not even one large pinfish. All the shiners were tiny, too tiny, and the pinfish were very small. I was wondering what I would do.

We had spent over two hours trying to catch bait in several different places, all with the same results. The tide was moving as well as it was going to, and it was getting late. We didn't have what I considered to be descent snook bait, so I decided to go right for the redfish. With no baits large enough to cast very far, I decided to present the small pinfish with a few slices in their sides under a Cajun float. The slices would give me some scent in the water to go along with the chum I was throwing, and the floats would give me the distance to the fish. Frankly, I didn't know if the redfish would eat those tiny pinfish, but boy did they! At the start it was mostly me and Jeff that were fishing. I had cautioned that Max was kind of small to have the strength and motor skills to handle the big redfish. But the first few we caught were puppy drums of around 22 inches, so we got Cheryl involved with a rod in her hand. I cautioned her to hold on tight to my expensive Shimano Sustain/Stella combos, as there were fish out there that could jerk a rod right out of her hands if they began feeding aggressively.

The reds were even chasing the small pinfish to the top and blasting them. Very cool, and exciting. It didn't take long for me to be proven correct, when a big redfish damned near jerked Cheryl and my equipment right off the bow of the Talon. That fish hit so hard that it straightened Cheryl's arms, and all but pulled her right out of the boat!! She screamed bloody murder, and tried to get one of us to take the rod, but Jeff and I refused, and I went into the coaching mode. Cheryl managed to get control of her adrenaline, and before you know it, she was pumping and reeling that big redfish like a pro. Eventually, she landed the 10.5 pound fish, and was she thrilled. She promptly let Jeff know that she would be joining him on fishing trips more often.

Well, I guess the violent strike of that redfish, and watching his mom almost leave the boat kind of spooked little Max, as once we were hooked up to another smaller redfish that we thought he could handle, he didn't want any part of it. We coaxed and pushed and prodded, and finally got Max to take the rod as Jeff got the fish near the boat, but he just wasn't sure about the whole thing. Can't say I blame the little guy.

I guess we had landed around 15 nice redfish when the weather began to get our attention. We had storms brewing all over the horizon, and we could see lightning and hear thunder. We decided not to become fishing martyrs, and headed for the Waterfront Restaurant. We figured we could keep our eye on the weather there as we had lunch reasonably close to our final destination.

Even though it had been cut a little short, it had been a great day of redfishing for the Cantins. One they won't soon forget. We sent them home with a limit of fish to feed their gang with, and I have some great pictures to send to them.

Thursday evening my honey and I met Bob Brockway and his neighbor Vince and their wives at the Green Flash on Captiva for dinner. It was a great evening, and my first time to meet their wives, who were both quite lovely. Bob is a comedian of the first magnitude, and Vince a great straight man, and they kept us all laughing as we recounted past fishing trips, and other things that can't be mentioned here. Thanks, Bob, for a great evening!

Friday, after having to deal with some network problems, my sweetie and I headed to San Padre Island to celebrate the 4th of July with Bubba Baker and his lovely wife Barbara, and their kids, Shelby, Dan, and Kyle. Bubba's daughter Shelby is the youngest, at eleven. But, she is already a hard-core fishergirl with an IGFA World Record trout under her belt. We spent the late afternoon watching her throw her little 6 ft. castnet for bait, and then fishing for snook in the surf, as Bubba caught more bait for her. By the time the sun was setting and it was time to watch the myriad of fireworks all around us, Shelby had caught no less than 7 snook, and Kyle 2.

It was one of my most memorable and relaxing July 4th's ever. It was so much fun watching this young female angler catch her snook, and helping her take them off the hook. I kept wondering what she might be doing by the time she's 20! My thanks to Bubba and his family for a wonderful Independence Day holiday that I will never forget.

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 6/28/03 by Capt. Butch Rickey

Although rains early in the week forced some shuffling of my schedule, for the first time in a while the story is not weather this week. Instead, the story is water quality, which has been seriously degraded because of all the rainy weather lately. Not only are we being inundated with our own storm water runoff, we're being flooded with trillions of gallons of water per day from Lake Okeechobee, as they drain the lake down to what is considered safe levels for the tropical storm season. Result: The water in Pine Island Sound is as black as coffee, and nearly fresh. Not a good thing. It has a negative effect on bait and fishing.

So, the first trip of the week on Wednesday was my first trip with Keith and Dori Riddle, of Cape Coral just across the river. Keith's boat is up for sale over in Orlando, and he hadn't been on the water in a while. We had been forced to reschedule from Monday, and a friend who was supposed to join the Riddle's could not.

We left the dock at first light and headed for Kiesel's for bait. There's nothing quite like the exhilaration one feels while speeding across the water at 50 MPH, the cool morning air in your face, the overwhelming beauty of the Sound, and a breathtaking sunrise just off to the right. It makes you feel so alive. We got good bait without too much ado, and were off to chase snook.

We began our search on the beach. The fish were there in large numbers, but they weren't in much of an eating mood. Keith and Dori caught about 15 of the linesiders, and I think Dori got the biggest one. Once we were sure the bite was over, we headed inside to try for some redfish. I looked at a couple of flats before stopping. We found a good school, and I began chumming the fish with live and sliced shiners and pinfish. We had a very early high tide at around 10:00 AM on that flat, and we were actually fishing the first part of the falling tide. We got the fish to eat, but not well. We had about 10 fish eat our baits, but we only managed to get a few in the boat. All in all it was a good day, and the Riddles were great fun.

I had long looked forward to my trip on Thursday with my old friends Capt. Marty and Nancy Dietz. Yes, Marty has just recently become licensed and is running charters back home in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Nancy hadn't made the last trip with Marty and his dad, and it was good to have her along. Bait was still OK at Kiesel's, but things were strange after that.

We headed out to my favorite patch of beach for snook and were surprised to find bait flipping as far as the eye could see, and hundreds of pelicans and other birds working the bait. I don't think I've ever seen so much bait concentrated on the beach like that. Well, apparently the snook had all they wanted to eat, because we only managed to catch one fish. Nancy caught it while throwing away from the beach. She also caught a couple of catfish, and we missed a snook or two, but basically, no matter how we presented our baits, we couldn't get the fish to eat.

So, it was back inside to fish for resident snook. We saw tarpon on the beach, too, and stopped to see if we could get a line on them, but they were rolling once, and then disappearing. Things were slow on the flats, too. We managed to catch 7 or 8 snook to 6 pounds, and later we got some redfish to eat and we caught 6 or 7 to 11 pounds, with Marty getting the largest one. Probably the highlight of the day for Nancy was her first encounter with manatees. I spotted them not far from where we were fishing in about 6 feet of water, and when Nancy told me she'd never seen one, I had to take her to them. There were three, and we were able to get right on top of them with the trolling motor.

We ended the day with a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant. Marty was happy, especially with the redfish we had caught. Nancy seemed thrilled with having seen her first manatees. It was great to see the Dietzs again, and I was looking forward to seeing them again on the weekend.

Friday was a tough day. Overnight, the water had turned coffee black from the tannic acid runoff from our own rains, and from the volumes of water being dumped on us from Lake Ocheechobee. Every time the lake is drained down, we get hammered with all the fresh water, and the result is not good. This practice is destroying the seagrasses in the Caloosahatchee River, and if allowed to continue, will eventually take it's toll on the estuary that is Pine Island Sound. It always affects the bait and the fishing.

My customers were Jim and Cheryl Libertini, of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and it was our first trip together. After hearing from some of the other guides that bait had disappeared over the weekend, I expected to find shiners scarce, but we still managed to get nice bait.

The nice bait didn't do us a lot of good, though. Fishing was tough. We only managed to catch one snook, and I finally suggested we turn our attention to redfish. I managed to get a bite going late in the tide, and we were catching fish, when the weather began to threaten. The safety of my customers always has to be the first concern, and we decided to get off the water. We had put 4 or 5 reds to 8 pounds in the boat at that point. Although we had to cut our trip a little bit short, I don't think Jim or Cheryl minded, as it was a calm day, and the heat was brutal. The ride home felt wonderfully refreshing.

Saturday night Marty and Nancy Dietz, along with Nancy's parents, and aunt and uncle, treated me to a birthday dinner at Ballenger's. Most of us had the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet, and we had a blast. It was a wonderful evening, and great to meet her family. My thanks to them for a great time.

We have pretty good tides for most of next week, but it remains to be seen what the impact of all this fresh water runoff will be over the long haul. We can only pray that the fish, bait, and estuary make a quick adjustment to it.

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