Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
May 13, 2006
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 5/13/06 by Capt. Butch Rickey

The week brought more late season cold fronts, yes, even a very little bit of rain. Well, some is better than none. The week was also shortened from five work days to three by illness, some of it mine.

My problems began on Monday morning. My friend Tim Morey was up for a redfishing trip, hopefully part catching and part teaching. The wind was pretty strong out of the south with the approach of the front that would bring us a chance at rain, and it was very bouncy under the A span of the causeway. The wind would be easiest to deal with there, although I would have to throw right into it. That meant I would have to really wind up and throw the net hard and very low to the water. After several tosses without anything, I found the bait wadded up on the first pedestal coming out of the ramp in shallow water. Three throws and Tim and I were loaded to the gills. I took a half hour or more to try to separate the threadfins out of the mix, and they were dying almost immediately. I had put probably a thousand or more baits in the well, and that will do the threads in quickly.

We had to stop several times along the way to our first spot to clear the drain in the baitwell. Once the deadfins plugs up the drain, the 750 GPH pump forces water out of the well anywhere it can. By the time we got there we pretty much had a handle on the bait situation. Now, all we had to do was find some redfish. But, oops! The first fish was a snook! Well, they often inhabit the same territory. We couldn’t get anyone else interested there, not even another snook. So, we moved on.

The wind was bouncing around a lot from southeast to southwest, making it hard to fish. To get to where I expected to find the redfish we were having to throw either parallel to the cover or across a pretty good wind to get to them. But, we did find the reds, and did catch some. We were using weighted popping corks to help with the casting, and to keep our baits out of the bottom in the shallow water. We caught around a dozen before they quit biting, and had to move very close to the fish to catch them as the wind changed. We made it work, and caught fish from two different schools.

If you’re wondering about that last statement, and how I know that, here’s the explanation. Redfish tend to school by size, which is to say age. If you ever get on a hot redfish bite, you’ll notice all the fish are within an inch of the same size. Often in the middle of a hot bite, suddenly we’ll have fish that are noticeably larger or smaller than those we’ve been catching. That signals the arrival of a different school of fish, and is pretty common. It’s been my experience that it’s most common to start off catching fish that are at the bottom of the slot, and then a couple of hours later suddenly be catching fish that are at the top of the slot, some six or seven inches longer.

At the next spot we didn’t find redfish, but it was useful to show Tim what to look for when fishing in the mangroves for redfish. WE moved on to another spot in the McKeever Keys that had similar attributes. I chummed the shoreline with live and cut bait trying to draw the reds out of the bushes enough to catch a few. And, we did. It was a good ending to what had been a pretty good day, except for the fact that I had hurt my back that morning catching bait.

Don’t know when it actually happened, and it was in the middle of my back instead of down around my waist. So, this was something new. As the day progressed so did the pain, and it felt like someone driving a hot steel blade through my upper torso. When I moved wrong the pain was so intense that I couldn’t keep myself from gasping and making some kind of noise! By the time I got the Talon home and cleaned up I could hardly move. I was worried that I had really done something serious, but my instincts told me this was muscular instead of skeletal.

The next morning as I attempted to get out of bed for my first trip with Eric Smith, of Alva, I literally went to my knees with the pain. I could hardly take a breath of air! But, once I got straightened out, the subsequent episodes weren’t as bad. I could deal with it. I had to. I had an instructional trip with Eric Smith, whom I’d met a couple of times years ago through my dear friend Capt. Mark Bess.

It’s funny. I watch the weather like a hawk, as a rule. My morning routine is to fire up the big HP and look at several weather sites and radars. Probably because all we’d heard was no chance of rain until the end of the week, and because I was very distracted by my back pain, I didn’t check the radar that morning. In retrospect, I think all of us guides got caught not paying attention that morning.

I met Eric that morning expecting an easy time of bait right where I’d caught it the day before. Easy that is, if I could throw the net without screaming. Eric helped with helm duties as I threw the net over and over, and had only one strike of maybe four to five dozen shiners to show for my efforts. I knew I couldn’t hold up much longer, and also knew that lots of bait had moved onto the flats near Picnic Island. I hadn’t gone to check it out because bait had been very easy around the causeway. But, it was time to check it out.

As I heard the crack of dawn that morning, I noticed there was a lot of cloudiness and moisture in the air. It looked for all the world like something was brewing, but the weather folks had been assuring us differently. Yet, as it got lighter it was obvious something was going on.

We made our way to Picnic Island, where I found my friend Capt. Rob Modys. He had bait chummed up big-time, and was done and just killing time. He invited us in to throw on his chum. In my condition I could barely lift the net into the boat. There was so much bait we had to dump it all straight into the well, and deal with it there. It took Eric and me a long time to finally get most of the threadfins sorted out, so that we could travel without having to constantly stop to clear the drain. We had more bait than you would believe.

WE made our way into the Sound. The first couple hours we spent riding from place to place, showing Eric the what, where, and why of where to fish. In the process we saw lots of fish, even in the clear water that makes it so hard to get close to anything. All the while I was keeping one eye on the sky. I just didn’t like what I was seeing.

I decided to cross to the west side of the Sound to the Wulfert Key area so that I would be in hearing distance of the lightning alert system at the golf course there on the north end of Sanibel. We hadn’t been there long when the sky went from cloudy and gray to thunderheads and ominous clouds appearing. Shortly afterward, we heard the rumble of thunder far in the distance. Something was indeed coming our way. A few minutes later I heard what I knew was coming; the lightning alarm horn. It was time to beat feet, and we quickly did so. As we were making our way off the flats and just getting on plane, I saw a big bolt of lightning to the north, and hoped we hadn’t waited too long. It appeared that the weather was moving very quickly.

We began to feel raindrops just as we got to our refuge at the Waterfront Restaurant. I took some charts and stuff in so we could have a classroom session while we waited on the weather. We ordered breakfast, and while we ate we had a very quick storm and some rain. Although it rained hard, it was only for a very short time.

We sat tight waiting to see if it was going to clear out, or if more weather was on the way. While we did Eric and I covered tides, moon phases, and other factors that are so important to inshore saltwater fishing. Finally, shortly before noon, the sky had cleared and the sun was out. The wind had shifted signaling the passing of the front. Eric and I decided we’d go back out and see if we could catch a fish or two before calling it a day. The tide was about done, and the front had passed, but we figured there was a shot at a fish on the first of the outgoing tide.

We had several looks; fish rolling up on our baits, and missed a fish or two. But, finally we connected with a nice redfish, which we released. Now, we could call it a day! Although we’d lost several hours to the weather, we’d made good use of the time, and Eric was pleased with the day.

You can almost call how it’s going to go for at least a couple of days after a front. Tough! Wednesday was true to form for my first trip with Ray Raymond Jr. and Sr., both of Cape Coral. But after meeting them at the ramp that morning and explaining how I saw the day, I knew is would be a great day. Ray and Ray assured me that there was no pressure to catch a bunch of fish, and that they just enjoyed being out on the water. They were definitely laid back, and definitely fun guys.

My back was still killing me, so the thought of catching our bait with one toss of the net was very attractive. We headed to Picnic Island, where we found a whole fleet of boats already chumming, and more were on the way. I picked a patch of bottom about 3 ft. deep where there were NO baits visible. I figured I might be able to chum plenty of shiners in to us without all the threadfins to plug things up. But, there’s no way to be sure what you have until they’re in the well.

After Ray Jr. chummed for a few minutes there was bait all around the boat. It was time to throw, and see what we had. I knew as I saw the net light up with silver as it sank over the bait, it was a Mother Load. And, I could hardly pull it into the boat. We had shiners everywhere! Quickly, I got most of them into the sorting tray and from there into the well. We had enough bait for several days fishing. I sat and plucked and sorted the threadfins out for the next hour. But, even with most of those sorted out, we had an enormous load of bait. And, we would need them for live chumming.

Finally, we were cleaned up and ready to head to the first spot of the day. Shortly after arriving, I realized that there were boats everywhere. I didn’t know what was going on, but figured it must be people pre-fishing and scouting for a weekend tournament. Turned out I was right. Ray Jr. got one redfish early at the first stop, but nothing after that. We fished a number of spots, all the while competing with other boats for a place to fish, and although we did have some instinct strikes, we couldn’t get a hook in anything. I was disgusted with all the boat traffic and elected to move to another area, entirely.

As we made our way I saw fish busting on a flat nearby. I knew it had to be jacks or ladyfish, but figured from the splashes it was jacks. I was going to keep going because it’s been my experience that a lot of locals don’t want to bother with jacks because they’re not good on the table. It’s silly, as jacks are one of the hardest fighting fish we have here. Even small ones can give you fits. Ray saw them about the same time, and I asked him if he wanted to stop and try to catch a few. His answer was a resounding, “Yes!” He said he and his Dad weren’t picky about what they caught, and jacks would be just fine.

I backtracked and got into position to approach the school with the breeze behind us. In position, I stuck the Power Pole and threw a couple of bats of live chum, which the jacks were more than happy to blast. Ray Jr’s first bait into the water was crushed, and he had a nice sized jack on. I let one get away.

After landing that fish, we again chummed and got baits in the water. Jr. hooked another fish, and his Dad interested in watching the fight forgot to clear his line. I tried to get mine clear but the fish quickly came to my side and got my rig tangled, and then went back and got Ray Sr. We had a good, old fashioned “Goat Screw”! Once we got the fish and all the rigging in the boat, Ray Sr. went to work on trying to undo the mess, but we finally convinced him it was futile while Ray Jr. and I tried to get another fish hooked up while tying lines. I think Ray caught one more jack, and then once they had moved on also caught a very nice speckled trout.

Next I headed to a piece of shoreline I love to fish when the conditions are right, and they were! High water and a southerly breeze. I chummed the shoreline trying to get some redfish to come out of the bushes and play. We had a nice hit on one of the baits, but it wound up being a miss. We only managed one more hit, which turned out to be a descent snook. We fished until the tide was done, and headed home. We had made the best of a very tough day. We had gotten the Slam with jacks or better to open!

I told the boys back at the ramp that if all my customers were as laid back as them, it would make the tough days a lot easier to handle. Having said that, most customers who are avid and frequent fishermen understand all to well the ups and downs of fishing, and accept those days as part of the sport. Most are also quick to say that 75% of the fun is just being on the water with family and friends, and that catching is the icing on the cake. How true!

I canceled Thursday’s trip with a long-time friend of mine, mostly in an effort to give my back a chance to heal. I’d been suffering for three days. As it turned out, it was just what the doctor ordered, and I saw a great improvement in just one day.

My Friday customer, Mike Jensen, of Peoria, Illinois, was suddenly stricken with meningitis, and in the hospital, and his good friend and fishing buddy Pat Dierker, called to tell me the bad news. The rest of the guys didn’t feel right about coming down without Mike. Hopefully, Mike will recover fully, and they’ll be able to come down in the fall.

That’s how it went. I’ve got another full week on the books next week. Barring unforeseen circumstances, there should be plenty to talk about next week.

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