Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida

Capt. Butch Rickey
May 20, 2006
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 5/20/06 by Capt. Butch Rickey

The fishing continued to be bloody hard this week. And, of course another big late season cold front was a factor, but at least it brought us some much needed rain. It might have even been enough rain to put some color back into our water. That would be a good thing.

The week began on Sunday morning with my old friend Dr. John Hitt. John’s been working a grueling schedule lately, and I think we were both looking forward to getting out together. We left his dock at 6:30, and headed down to Picnic Island for bait. I expected the area to look like a parking lot, but there was only one other boat approaching the area at the same time we were. A couple of guys were running along on the motor and throwing the net. Not the way to catch bait! We made an approach on the trolling motor and got right in the middle of millions of baits flashing everywhere. We made up a small batch of chum, and began putting it out front. Yes, we could have caught plenty of bait just throwing the net. But, we would likely have had tons of threadfins in the mix. Chumming is effective at getting the shiners concentrated around the chummed area, so that when you throw the net, you get mostly shiners. With two throws of John’s net, we had the Coastline loaded for a day of fishing.

Since snook are out of season and most of the big trout have migrated offshore, our target species for the day was redfish. John wanted fish for dinner. We headed up to a flat where I’d been catching redfish in the last few weeks, but once there realized that the tide was not where the tide charts had predicted it would be. WE decided we’d head outside to the beaches for the first time this year to see if the big trout were still around, and maybe find some snook, too.

But, to our amazement, we couldn’t even get a bite. Zip! Zero! Nada! Neither of us wanted to believe it, but another boat nearby had lots of lines in the water and never got a bite, either. They were anchored, while John and I worked a long shoreline of fallen trees. We decided to move on.

Since we were pretty far north, I was going to check some spots on the outside of Cayo Costa, but as we passed Captiva Pass I decided to go back inside and get back to redfish. We weren’t likely to find reds on the outside. I decided to take a look at a couple of places I hadn’t fished in probably 8 years. At the first spot the sea grasses were covered with some kind of slimy stuff, and the flats didn’t look healthy. We moved on.

The second spot was a secluded mangrove shoreline. I used to catch both redfish and snook there. With the tide moving so slowly and the moon full, I really didn’t expect anything here, either. But, to our surprise, John soon had a keeper redfish in the boat. We had enough hits that we missed 4 or 5 fish, and put 3 in the boat. I don’t know why we missed so many fish. I guess we were just having rookie moments. Anyway, we were happy to have a limit of redfish in the well.

We hit some other places as the tide finished it’s rise, but we couldn’t buy a bite anywhere else. By now, the Sound was full of boat traffic running every which way. It was time to head home. Although it had been a very hard day, John was happy to have some redfish to eat, and it had been a beautiful day on the water.

Monday morning the first thing I did was fire up my zd8000 and check several of the weather sites. The threat of rain had been increasing as the days had gone by, and now they were talking thunderstorms by 11:00 AM. Not a good way to start my first trip with Dan Brindley and his beautiful girlfriend, Amanda, students at Kent State. I was really looking forward to meeting them, as Dan had brought Amanda here on vacation with the intention of proposing to her. He told me Sunday night on the phone that she had accepted.

I was at the ramp by 5:30 AM, and to pick up Dan and Amanda at the Sanibel ramp by 6:30, so I had a few minutes to hang around and talk with some of the other guides. The consensus was that fishing inside was very tough. Everyone was struggling. No surprise there!

After meeting Dan and Amanda, we headed straight to Picnic Island for bait. A couple of my friends were there, already. It took a little more time than I had expected. The first pod of bait had no shiners in it. We moved into shallower water until we got into another pod of bait. A little chum and we had them holding well, and two throws of the net loaded the Talon’s well. The best part was that it was almost all shiners. We were ready to fish.

The weather was definitely changing. I elected to try to put some fish into the boat up in the Wulfert Keys area. The golf course there on the north end of Sanibel has a lightning alert that can be heard from some distance. It’s a good place to be when the weather is uncertain.

We began with fishing some potholes for snook while the water was low. I did a lot of chumming with our live bait. And, nearly ever bait we cast got scaled by snook. But, they weren’t about to eat one. We kept at it, moving from spot to spot, and the fish kept doing the same thing. They’d lip the baits enough to knock the scales off the midsection, but refused to eat one. Frustrating!

Finally, with the weather beginning to look threatening, I decided to go to the east side of the Sound and see if we could catch some redfish in the bushes. Lots of chumming produced nothing but rain. The rain sneaked up on us, and concerned about lightning, we took off to see if we could get out of it. We had about decided to call it a day, but as we got back near Picnic Island we could see the sky was clearing. No way did I want to send Dan and Amanda home without a fish in the boat! But, Amanda had been sitting out all morning because she was having some serious problem with her eyes since they had arrived in Florida. She hadn’t complained even one time.

Dan and Amanda agreed that we’d keep fishing. We would stay within a couple miles of the ramp in case the weather flared up on us. At the first stop, we actually had a bit of action. Dan caught a redfish, first. Then, a snook. I had a good snook on, but it wrapped around a small private marker and eventually sawed through the line. We had quite a few hits there, but only managed to actually boat those two fish.

Once the action seemed over, we agreed to hit one more spot. I had a great snook spot in mind up in Matlacha Pass. The weather had cleared out nicely by now, and I wasn’t worried about getting caught in a storm. I assured Dan that there would be plenty of weather coming in before the day was over, though.

At our last stop I chummed the mangrove shoreline over and over. We got quite a few blowups on our chum, but getting the snook to eat a bait with a hook in it seemed impossible. We kept chumming and moving, chumming and moving, tossing our baits right on top of fish that had blasted our chum. Finally, it happened.

Actually, I had just begun to reel my bait in, when I saw a big fish flash on it. It happened so fast I couldn’t be sure of anything other than it was big and fast. A split second later it blasted my bait and took off like a rocket. I put the rod in Dan’s hands and began coaching him on how to get control of the fish. He’d never tangled with anything like this.

When you’re snook fishing, you have to assume every hit is not only a snook, but a big snook, and take action accordingly, or you will never land a trophy snook. They will beat you in the first several seconds of the battle and leave you wondering what the heck happened. They are amazingly fast and powerful on that first run. This fish first ran straight away toward the mangroves, but not to the nearest ones. As she got there she turned right and headed out to open water. We knew it was a big fish, but it was at that point that I began to wonder if it was a snook. It’s rare that a big snook will turn away from the freedom that lies in the mangroves.

We were situated very close to the mangroves. I knew that if Danny didn’t loose the fish, there was still the possibility that she would try another run and the bushes once he got her back close to the boat. So, I decided to pull the Power Pole and get away from the shoreline. That way, she’s have a lot farther to go to get to freedom in the mangroves.

Danny continued to slug it out with this powerful fish, and was just in awe of it’s power. After a protracted battle, we finally got the fish close to the boat and got a glimpse of it. It was a huge jack crevalle. It was a beautiful fish with bright yellow fins, and is the most powerful swimmer in our waters. Finally, the Boga was in place around the lower jaw, and the fish was landed. Dan was thrilled. He’d never caught such a fish, and said he’d rather have caught that one jack that five of the snook he’d caught earlier. The jack weighted 10 pounds and measured 30 inches.

Dan and I agreed that this was the perfect way to end a tough day of fishing. Dan took the helm while I dumped bait and did some cleanup, and then we headed back to Sanibel. I’m sure Amanda was glad to be going in. She had been miserable all day with her eye problem. I assured Dan that he had one major keeper in the boat, and it was Amanda. Of course, he agreed with a big smile. I’m looking forward to seeing Dan and Amanda again next year, hopefully under better fishing conditions.

That night, the rains came. Boy, did we need the rain. During the night I was awaked several times by big boomers that were really close strikes. I heard it raining every time I awoke during the night. By the time I got up in the morning for my trip with John Hitt, the rain had stopped. I jumped on the computer and the revised forecast was now at 90% chance of rain and thunderstorms, and the radar was showing the gulf covered up with rain and storms. I called John, and we quickly agreed that the best place to be was safe at home that day.

I would have been upset if the weather had cleared out, as it sometimes does after you make the call to cancel a trip. But, we finally got the rain we needed; an all day gentle soaker. We didn’t have any more thunderstorms, just good, steady rain.

By late that evening the rain had cleared out and the radar was checking clear. The forecast for Wednesday morning was for northwest wind at 10 to 15 MPH. But, through the night I could hear the palm tree outside my bedroom beating against the house. That only happens when the wind is northwest or north, and blowing pretty hard. I got up and got ready, and because the rain was supposed to be behind us, didn’t bother to check the radar. When I walked out the door I realized it was raining. Geez! It wasn’t hard rain, but enough to make you miserable traveling in a boat.

I headed on over to John Hitt’s marina, and arrived at the same time John’s friend Bill Donegan did. I hadn’t seen Bill in at least a couple of years, and that early in the morning didn’t even recognize him. We stood watching the wind and drizzle while we chatted, realizing it was going to be a miserable day on the water. Soon John joined us, dragging all his gear. Once he got a look at the conditions it was a pretty easy call to cancel our trip and reschedule it for Saturday. We had already rescheduled our Tuesday trip for Friday, and were feeling confident that although the tides would be awful, the weather would be great.

Thursday morning it was more of the same. It was already blowing when I met my friends Alan Kingston and John Bond. The revised forecast was for gusts to 25 MPH, but it was more like a steady 25 and gusting higher before it was over. On top of that we had a miserable tide, and the tides would be more miserable as the days went on through the weekend.

We headed up the river and down Miserable Mile to Picnic Island for bait. We joined the several other boats that were there, and in a couple of good throws had more bait than we could possibly use. We were ready to fish. The question was, where? As we rode up the Sound I began thinking someplace in Ding Darling Sanctuary might be the answer. At least we could get out of the worst of the wind. But, could we get there? As we rounded York Island and cleared the manatee zone we hit some really nasty water. A couple of the first waves really caught me off guard, as they seemed to well up under us. After pounding on the first couple, I got the Talon adjusted to the sharp rollers, and we zipped across to the Sanibel side without much further ado. As we entered the manatee zone into Ding Darling, Alan and John noted that they would still be back at the causeway if they’d been in their boat.

Boy, it was nice to get out of the wind. I began chumming the mangroves and the boys cast their baits. The high wind actually had over ridden the slow incoming tide, and had the water going out! But, that meant it was moving ever so slightly. The first fish in the boat was a nice mangrove snapper. We had several blasts on the chum, but never got a snook to eat a bait with a hook in it. Alan and John also caught a couple of very nice flounder, and later back farther in, a jack crevalle. We fished hard, but no reds or snook. It was time to move on.

We headed north in search of redfish and fished a large area near Buck Key, and then in Foster’s Bay, and never got a hit. I did see a couple of redfish, but it was no dice. A trip across the Sound was in order, but we weren’t looking forward to it. But, once we got underway, it wasn’t so bad. We landed in the area of 40 Acre Bay, and began our hunt for redfish.

We chummed and fished and chummed and fished. We had several fish swirl on our baits without eating them, but finally had a good hit, and a nice redfish in the boat. We had at least met our meat objectives with a nice snapper, some nice flounder, and a beautiful redfish. We were ready to head in. As always, it had been a fun day with a couple of great guys, and we had done about as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The full moon and the passing of the front had just added more obstacles to catching fish.

It’s Friday. Time for John Hitt and me to try it again. The wind was still up and forecast to gust to 25! We decided that instead of running way up into the Sound, we’d fish around the mouth of the river and in Matlacha, and avoid having a 20 mile ride home in very rough waters. It was a good plan.

We headed down the river to Picnic Island, and were surprised to find only a boat or two there catching bait. We were running a bit late. We chummed like crazy trying to get the shiners we wanted to congregate and separate from the zillions of threadfin herring that were flashing everywhere. We tried several areas with no luck, but once we finally got them going, we loaded the Coastline to the gills in two throws. Man! We had a thousand shiners if we had ten! Time to fish.

We fished a number of spots within a mile or two of Picnic Island. We had plenty of snook blowing up our chum, but after several misses, only managed to get two snook into the boat. When we were done fishing a spot, I would move slowly into the fishing area on the trolling motor, and everywhere we went, we saw plenty of snook, and some redfish. They just didn’t want to play.

Eventually, we moved up into Matlacha Pass and were at it, again. We chummed and chummed, and saw lots of snook, including some very big females. We also had lots of blows on our chum all along the shoreline, but only managed a couple of snook. But, at least we knew we had been on nice fish all morning long.

Now, we were in the last phase of our trip, and we moved up the river to the Tarpon Point area. Once there it was more of the same on both fronts, chumming and fishing, chumming and fishing, as we moved along the shoreline. There were plenty of blows on our chum, and we had a small school of big jack crevalle that kept raiding our baits, too. We wanted to catch one of those big suckers, badly.

We kept at it, moving every so often and spraying more chum. The jacks kept raiding our chum, but alluding our hooked baits. But, finally it happened. A jack blasted a shiner on a circle hook in the rod holder. A guaranteed hookup! The fight was on. It was one of those big jacks, and it’s one of the best fights to be had in shallow water. The fish turned out to be just under 10 pounds, and was a blast for John on the light tackle we use. Now, we could go home. We had gotten what we came for.

We decided to get an earlier start on Saturday morning, and Bill Donegan was joining us for the day, with the caveat that the fishing would be great, but the catching would be very tough. After some delays in getting started, we were finally under way and headed to Picnic Island. Once there, the bait was elusive. Oh, there were millions of threadfins flashing all around us. But, we were having trouble getting shiners chummed in. My first several throws yielded nothing but threadfins. We chased the fish around on the flats for some time with no success, and the pain in my back manifested itself as frustration with the situation.

Finally, John and I managed to find the shiners hiding in all those threadfins, and got them chummed in. They came slowly at first, but before it was over we had apparently for the first time overloaded the baitwell of the Coastline. While I attempted to get a handle on the baitwell and the dying threadfins, I suggested that John and Bill cast topwater plugs on the flat to see if they could catch some of the trout we’d seen busing the threadfins. They were all for that, and John managed several trout on topwater, and Bill got a ladyfish. Finally, we were ready to go fishing.

It was apparent as we rode along that we finally had a beautiful day on our hands. We had a horrible tide to fish, but by golly, it was beautiful out! I took the controls and took us in to McKeever Keys. We had decided while riding along that we would target redfish. John wanted some fish to take home. We had also had an acute failure of John’s Power Pole back at the bait stop, so today would also be Power Pole appreciation day. Man! Anchors are a pain in the butt!

Well, once situated on our fist hole, it wasn’t long before I realized we had lots of redfish and snook, along with mullet, milling around along the shoreline. Most of the action we had for the day was right there at that spot while we had the only moving water of the day. It wasn’t moving much, but it seemed enough to give us a bite of sorts.

John had a couple of great snook hits, and missed one and landed one. John and Bill each landed a redfish, and another snook. The snook was a nice one, but they are out of season. We did, however, have two reds in the well, and were looking for one more for our limit. But, it never came. I missed one later at another stop, and we had lots of chum blasted as we fished the rest of the morning. But, the fish we put in the boat all came from that first spot.

We fished hard for the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon, but couldn’t add that last redfish. But, as we fished I think Bill realized the value of good equipment, light tackle, braided line, and the ability to cast. He was talking about having his wife get him a Stella and a St. Croix Legend rod for his birthday!

For the rest of the day it was the same thing everywhere we went. The snook would scale our baits, and you couldn’t feel it happen. But, there is no doubt they’ve lipped your bait when they knock the scales off it and never break the skin. Finally, after working our way north in the Sound to Benedict Key, which gave us one last snook, we were ready to head home. I don’t think it occurred to any of us they on this tough day we had actually succeeded in getting the Slam.

It had been a great, and beautiful day with a couple of great guys. Although Bill hadn’t managed to catch much, it was obvious that he had a great appreciation of what fishing is really all about; being out on the water enjoying the wonders of natures with friends. As he said, “Catching is a bonus!” He’s so right.

Next week the tides will be improving to as good as they get this time of year. Barring unforeseen fronts, we might actually see an improvement in the fishing. But, I don’t think we’re going to see a big improvement until we get into the rainy season and get some color back into our water, and get some of this over-hatch of bait out of here!

Stay tuned!

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