Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
April 25, 2004
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 4/24/04 by Capt. Butch Rickey

The fishing this week had me and my customers seeing red once again; redfish, that is! It was a great week of fishing on the whole, even though the tides were not strong, they were high, and often for the reds, that's all you need.

First up on Monday was my old friend Tom Smith, of Cincinnati, and his good friend Jim. I had fished with Jim before as well, but hadn't seen him in several years. We had a good looking new moon tide, and I expected good things on the day. We headed to Tarpon Bay for bait, and once the tide began to move, bait came easily.

The first few stops yielded a couple of nice flounder and several very nice trout to 4.5 pounds. But, I knew I had perfect conditions for a good redfish day, and wasted no time getting to my chosen flats. Once there, it didn't take long to see the action begin, and a definite preference for sliced and diced pinfish. We did catch the redfish on a variety of baits, though. The action was fast and furious, and the reds were BIG. Jim's best was 14.5 pounds, but Tom bested that fish with a 15.5 pound red of his own!! Most all the fish were over 10 pounds!

Of course, it didn't take long for our action to be noticed by other guides, and we soon had company. My good friend Capt. Rey Rodriguez had joined us with his customer for the whole week, Shelly, and they were catching well, too. But, another guide fished all around and on both sides of us, and never caught the first red while we were there. But, after around 40 big redfish, Tom and Jim were ready to call it a day, and we quietly left the flat. Hopefully, the other guide eventually caught some of those reds, too. It had been one hell of a day!

Tuesday was a fun day with Lew Joseph, an old customer and friend of mine for years. We hadn't fished together in a long time, and had been forced to cancel a couple of attempts at doing so. We invited my bud Capt. Butch Boteler, who is a mutual friend to Lew, for a nice, relaxing no pressure day on the water. I picked Lew up at Sanibel Harbor Marina, and Butch at the Waterfront Restaurant. We headed to Tarpon Bay for bait where the big surprise was that bait was very tough. We had a heck of a time getting bait, for whatever reason.

We began the day with a trip into Ding Darling to look for snook. The tide just wasn't moving well, at all. But for about 40 minutes we had a great big snook bite. The first bait Butch pitched into the bushes with his baitcast rig was eaten before he could turn the handle, and Butch got his butt handed to him. Shortly afterward, my first bait was hit violently by a big snook which ran away from the bushes and attempted to jump, exposing it's massive size for us all to see. But, her power was enough to rip the circle hook from her mouth, and she was gone in an instant! Soon afterward, I had another similar experience. Then, another big hit that cut me off before I could blink. Butch and Lew had similar episodes, and we all got our professional butts handed to us by the big snook that morning. And, then it was over! Snook 6! Us zero!

I had hoped that the redfish would be in a playful mood, again. After all, it was nearly the same conditions. But they weren't. Something had them shut down. We took up residence at the scene of the previous day's mayhem, and we managed to catch a few fish, but were never able to get the reds to turn on. Oh, they were there, all right! They just weren't interested. In all, we managed to boat only 2 reds if memory serves me, several big trout, and several snook for the Slam, but by all accounts it was a slow day of catching. But, guess what. We didn't care. We had a wonderful day of relaxation and renewing old friendships, and caught a few fish as a bonus. Isn't that what fishing is all about?

Wednesday was my first trip with Paul Emerson, and his good friend Jim Larson, both of Ft. Myers. After some years away from the sport, Paul is getting back in to fishing, and this was to be primarily an instructional trip.

After catching bait at Tarpon Bay, I decided to take Paul and Jim back to the spot where we had tangled with the big snook the day before. It was a perfect place to illustrate to someone what makes a good snook hole. It's a beautiful area with lots of snook, but they weren't interested in eating. The first fish was a bluefish of about 3 pounds, which we were all surprised to see. We caught 3 gag grouper, and had some snook hits, but didn't connect.

We moved on, as there were lots of things to teach. We went up the east side of the Sound where there are numerous mangrove islands, mangrove keys, and oyster bars. We stopped at a few places in order to show Paul what to be looking for, and also to let him actually see that fish are there. At one spot we saw many snook and redfish as we trolling motored along, and I decided to go ahead and fish the spot. We caught a couple of nice redfish, several snook, and 4 big trout at that stop, and probably could have caught more, but there were more things to teach. Paul was very interested in learning how I chum up the redfish. I probably could have chummed the fish right where we were, but I knew there were big numbers of fish waiting for us on my favorite flat.

We moved on. Not long after beginning the chumming we had our first strike. We missed several before we finally got the first fish hooked up. After that, though, Paul and Jim caught a dozen or so big redfish to 12 pounds, and had a blast with them. All in all it was a great day of learning and catching, with multiple Slams and a good variety of fish. Paul and Jim were both a lot of fun, as well, which just made the whole day even more fun.

Thursday and Friday were dedicated to my old friends Alan and Pam Warren, who come down a couple of times a year from Plant City, to fish with me. The Warrens love to fish, but Pam is really avid, even rabid! This girl is a fishing machine. I love fishing with them.

I had heard from my customer Tim Allen, who I had confirmed for April 29, on Wednesday evening. Tim had gotten his date wrong, and was here a week early ready to fish! Fortunately, I was able to get Butch Boteler go take him on short notice, and we joined up Thursday morning to catch bait. Bait was again tough until the tide began moving in. Then it came readily.

The ramp was a zoo that morning, and I knew there would be a lot of traffic on the water. There were many boats already out pre-fishing the upcoming O'Bannon Big Snook Tournament. This would call for a slight change of strategy.

At the first stop Alan and Pam caught 2 big jacks, 1 gag grouper, and 1 snook. It was a beautiful spot that I had not taken them to previously, and they loved it, but the snook weren't cooperating. So, we moved on. At the next couple of stops we managed about 10 snook to 28 inches, and one big trout. But, I was carefully watching the tide and hoping the best was yet to come. We headed to our final destination. Once there, we were all treated to a show that even I had never seen before. We quickly found our school of big redfish, but so had a couple of spinner sharks of about 5 to 6 ft. in length. I've often seen porpoise herd a school of redfish without causing them to move. They seem to instinctively know that the porpoise will pick off a weaker fish from the outside of the school. But, these redfish didn't like the presence of the shark, to my surprise, and every time the shark would approach the school, the fish would be on the move.

The presence of the sharks definitely complicated our efforts, but didn't foil them. We managed to get the redfish to bite, and catch plenty of them. Pam got her largest redfish ever; a 12 pound beauty. She was having a blast on no uncertain terms. So were Alan and I just watching her go at those redfish. By the time the tide was done, we had boated some 20 or more big redfish from 9 to 12 pounds, and Butch and Tim who had joined us on the flat, had also caught some nice reds. What a day!

Friday morning Pam, Alan, and I were back at it, again. The tide was later and weaker, and we had the O'Bannon in full swing! I wondered what the day might bring. I had hoped that bait might be easier, as we had decided to begin early to make sure we could get parking and get an early run on the bait while the tide was still falling. The plan seemed to work, as we got the last of the quickly disappearing parking, and bait came readily when we first arrived on the flat.

I decided to check on a spring trout spot on the outside, that I hadn't fished since last spring. I figured the fish should be there in big numbers. Apparently, a lot of the island guides thought the same thing, as there were half a dozen boats anchored on the shoreline. We didn't see anyone catching, though, and soon they were all leaving. We stayed for a while and eventually caught 9 large trout and 6 snook. We headed back inside and stopped at another spot I hadn't fished in a long while, and managed a couple of snook. Moving on I saw my good friend Capt. Rey Rodriguez sitting on one of my favorite redfish spots in the north end of the Sound, and stopped and called him on the cellphone. He said he had some fish biting, and invited us to join him. Of course, we did.

Rey had the fish ganged up in a pothole, which was surprising given the height of the water. We managed to catch 3 of the fish before they abruptly shut down. We told Rey we were moving on, and began moving out on the trolling motor when all of a sudden we had redfish all around us. They were spooked. I tried to head them off and turn them back to Rey, who was now on his way. Rey hooked one up, but they got away from us. They seemed to just disappear into the shallows, as we couldn't find them, again. We moved on.

At the last stop we again found our redfish, but there were not very willing to eat. We worked them hard, and again we could see them moving about, flashing, and mudding, but they just weren't interested much in eating. Alan and Pam managed to catch about 8 more of the bronze beauties, and Pam bested her big fish of the day before with a 13.5 pound beast. She was thrilled.

Although it had been a slower day, it had been a great day of fishing. We'd had a blast. I had also noticed a definite trend through the course of the week. I had Dwayne Stevens of Pace's Place build me a custom rod. It's basically a light trout rod built on a St. Croix blank. Dwayne used the latest in hi-tech guide technology, mounting the beautiful titanium framed blue zerconia guides on it, that perfectly match the Stella reels, and will stand up to years of using Power Pro braided line. It's an awesome rod, and gorgeous. Now, I'm not superstitious, but that rod was the hot rod on the boat all week. Alan and Pam loved it, and will order one from Dwayne this week. Dwayne is in the process of finishing up a whole cache of them for me, and I can't wait. They're built on St. Croix medium-heavy action blanks with fast tips, and will be perfect for beating down our big reds and snook, and even tarpon in the 100 pound class.

I will soon have only Dwayne's custom rods on the Talon, and those zirconia guides increase casting distance like you can't believe. If you're interested in the rods, let me know and I'll send you pictures and give you Dwayne's contact info. Of course, you can also come fish them with me!

We've got some seriously lousy tides for the first half of next week, so who know what will happen out there. I know I'll be working hard to make something happen, but sometimes you just can't overcome Mother Nature, no matter what you do. Tune in next week to see how it goes.

REPORT FOR WEEK ENDING 4/17/04 by Capt. Butch Rickey

I think I remember mentioning in last week's report that we had a front coming. Man, what an understatement. I don't think even the weather people had any idea just how vicious the front would be. We had heavy rains, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and gale and hurricane force winds Sunday and Monday. We recorded 55 MPH winds where I live not far from the ramp, and 80 MPH winds in places on Pine Island. That's serious stuff, and I don't think we had that much wind with the last tropical storm in 2001. It blew the fence down across the back of my house, and filled the Talon with oak leaves. Funny thing about that is that there is no oak tree anywhere near where I park the boat.

So, a shelling trip with Mike Siegelsky and his family on Monday, a fishing trip with a North Captiva pickup with Shawn Lemarie on Tuesday, and a trip with Harold Singer and a couple of his friends on Wednesday, were all in the dumper because of the weather and high winds that persisted even after the front had passed. I finally got on the water Thursday with my old friend Harold Tollrian, for our second trip of his stay. I knew it would be a very tough trip. it was still windy, but doable, and the water was a mess; both dirty and full of seaweed. I knew the fish would not want to eat, but Harold didn't have the option of rescheduling. We went for it.

We headed to Tarpon Bay for bait, where others were already chumming. Although it didn't come easily, we got enough shiners and pinfish to fish. I didn't learn until later than some of the others there had not gotten bait. Pothole fishing would necessarily be the order of the day. The constant and brutal north winds for days had not allowed the water to come in, and the tide was well below normal. We had a high tide of 1.5 ft. above MLW, but from what I saw out there, it never even approached 1.0.

So, Harold and I went pothole fishing, hoping to at least find some willing speckled trout (weakfish). In the first half of the morning we found only 4 trout, but they were all keepers, and at the top of the slot. Ironically, we caught them on a jig worked very slowly just like we would do during the cold of winter. We later fished a beautiful redfish flat, but never had a redfish strike. Harold did catch a beautiful 5# speckled trout, though, which he was very pleased with. Snook? Oh, we had many snook hits during the trip, but they were the classic hit and run that you can't even feel with Power Pro. You reel your shiner in to check it and it's scaled and half dead; the signature of a snook! Very frustrating.

So, Harold and I had a 5 weak(fish) day, which made the week. We had fun, and finished with a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant, where Harold delighted to the stuffed deviled crabs along with me.

I was to fish with my old friends Rod and Judy Heflin, on Friday, who have recently sold their business in Miami, and retired to Pine Island. As much as I needed to work, I just didn't have the heart to drag them out there on a day when I knew the conditions were going to continue to keep the fish turned off. They're local now, and can fish anytime. So, we'll reschedule.

That's it. A full week reduced to one tough day because of a freak cold front. Hopefully, that's the last of that stuff for this year! Next week is also full, and the tides are pretty good. We'll see!

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