Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
February 28, 2004
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 2/28/04 by Capt. Butch Rickey

It was a great week to be slow, because the weather has been very rough; blowing like crazy all week . Monday and Tuesday is blew from southerly directions as a big cold front approached, forcing me to move my Wednesday trip to Tuesday. Wednesday the storm came and it rained all day long, leaving us with a couple inches of rain. Predictably, Thursday and Friday were awful with wind still howling at up to 25 MPH, and lows back in the 40's.

After seeing the forecast for Wednesday, Charlie Wilson and I agreed that we'd better take our chances with Tuesday. At least it wouldn't be raining. But the weather guys promised wind, and we sure got it. It was howling straight out of the south when Charlie and his son Brian, of Danbury, Connecticut, left the dock that morning. The tide was blowing out of the river in direct opposition to the wind, and the mouth of the river was very ugly. Big rollers! Although the Talon will hop right over most of that kind of stuff, I didn't want to scare the hell out of Charlie and Brian first thing off the bat, so I took it slow and easy until we got into some smaller water. Eventually we made it to the ladyfish grounds where we were able to catch a few ladyfish for bait to be used later for redfish, but they weren't biting well. We put four in the well, and decided to move on.

I had hopes of catching some shiners along the way, but it was so windy in the Sound that it was nearly impossible to throw the net. With Charlie at the helm, I managed 4 baits on the first throw. But, those were the only 4 shiners we saw! After trying in vain, I decided to try to anchor and chum, but that was equally difficult. Hell, we had 2 footers trying to come over the back of the boat! The whale tale/splash guard on the Talon kept the water from coming right on up to the seat, but it was very difficult to stand up and get footing to throw the net. I was also having to throw across a vicious wind, and it just wasn't working. We managed a dozen or so pinfish and a few crabs, and finally resolved to fish artificials and what bait we had.

I wanted to get to the Sanibel side of the Sound, knowing that I could get out of at least some of the wind, and would have an easier ride home. But, I wasn't sure what kind of price we would pay to get there. I took an angle that kept the wind at my port side, and we rode the hills and troughs of the 4 ft. seas across the Sound. It wasn't as bad as I expected.

Once there we took up position to fish some potholes, and were quickly joined by a couple of other boats. They forced me to change my plans somewhat, but we did manage to catch quite a few very nice trout. We all quickly realized that we were the only ones catching any fish!

I was anxious to put the ladfish steaks out, and as the water flooded the flats we moved to another area and began chumming. I could see small pods of reds rooting in the mud, and "mudding", here, there, and yonder. We were on the fish. But, they weren't about to eat. We did catch some beautiful trout to 4 pounds on the steaks, much to another boat's chagrin. We had two redfish hits on the steaks, but they just weren't interested enough to hold on. We also tried spoons and jigs, but the reds just weren't having any part of us.

Conceding the redfish, I moved to another area to use the 4 shiners we had. Charlie made good on the first two of them, and turned them into his first two snook. Brian couldn't resist the urge to strike on the hit, and missed two more. Actually, he missed one very big fish who's back we actually saw twice as it rolled on the shiner. And, then there were none! And, the tide was done.

Charlie was really concerned about the ride home, but it was much more pleasant than the ride out, as I was able to follow the inside shoreline of Sanibel all the way back to the causeway and across.

I talked to some friends after the trip and they had seen identical circumstances with the redfish. The reds just weren't eating. But, Charlie and Brian were great sports to even leave the dock on such a windy day, and they were rewarded with lots of beautiful trout and their first snook. We had a good time in spite of Mother Nature.

The big spring push begins for me on Sunday, February 29. It will be cold in the morning, but is supposed to warm to the mid 80's. It WILL be windy. The tides early in the week are very poor, but improve as we approach the full moon next Saturday. We'll be fighting poor tides, wind, and full bellies. It will be a long report next week; seven days. Hopefully, it will be an interesting one as well.

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