Fishing Report for Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay, Florida
Capt. Butch Rickey
September 16, 2007
Pine Island Sound - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fort Myers Weather Forecast, FL (33908)
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FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 9/15/07
by
Capt. Butch Rickey
It was another dreadfully hot, slow week down here again this week. We did manage to get a little rain, though.
My one trip came on Friday, with Bill Dueease and his daughter Michele. We fished together for the first time last August the 6th, I believe it was. We had a great trip and caught lots of beautiful snook and redfish. Things are very different this year, and in addition to the other conditions we caught a tide that was going out for most of the morning.
Bill and Michele were right on time at Port Comfort, and Michele seemed even prettier than I remembered from last year. Bill still had that look of devilishness in his eye. He's a hoot. We headed out to Picnic Island, where we would catch bait. There were several boat scattered about the flats when we arrived. I took up position in my usual area away from everyone else, and with Michele doing the chumming, we were loaded with bait in four throws. We were ready to fish. I asked Bill as we idled off the flat if he had a preference as to what we did. The choices were basically fishing creeks and cuts, or fishing passes on the falling tide. Bill left it up to me, and I opted for creeks and cuts, which would be much more scenic, and had the potential for good fishing.
My gut told me it was going to be a hard day, but it in fact was much harder than I expected. We had beautiful bait and lots of it. I did a lot of chumming trying to get the fish going in the first spot. It took a while before we even got the first pop. I saw a school of jacks show up a crash some bait, but we couldn't get them to stop and eat. Bill did catch one nice jack, and I believe Michele caught a snapper or two. Finally, we moved on.
The second spot was a beautiful creek in the bowels of Sanibel. We were greeted by a lone porpoise as we entered. The tide was getting pretty low. I went about half a mile back into the creek so that we could fish along on the tide back to the mouth. It's a place where I've caught many big snook and redfish, but we just couldn't get anything going to speak of. It was time for another change.
As I navigate from place to place, I am ever vigilant for activity on the water that might mean a big bite on ladyfish, jacks, or trout. Sometimes, when the glamour fish aren't eating, it's your only opportunity to have fun catching. As I cleared Chino Island I spotted some activity on the water. It wasn't much, but I knew it probably meant there were lots of ladyfish there. We stopped and baited up. Pretty soon Bill and Michele were hooked up, and were pretty thrilled at the running and jumping antics of those good sized ladies. They caught quite a few of them, and Michele also had one nice trout on that got away right at the boat. We were nearing the bottom of the tide, and decided to move on and be ready for the turning of the tide at our next spot. I fully expected to have a good snook bite there.
Oddly, though. Once there, we had a few small snook while the water was nearly dead, along with a snapper or two. But, even after the tide began coming in, the bite I was looking for didn't materialize. It was time to move on, again. We decided we'd check one of my favorite low tide potholes for trout. We couldn't buy a bite.
We moved on to what would be the final stop of the day. We were looking for snook and grouper. Bill quickly put the first nice gag grouper in the boat, but after that it was tough going. We had any number of pinfish that came back with grouper bites on them, just as we'd had a number of shiners that had come back with big snook bites on them, but the fish just didn't want to commit to the deal. It was nearing the noon hour, and getting mighty hot, so we decided to call it a day.
SUMMER FISHING!
It had been great to see Bill and Michele again, but I was quite frustrated that I couldn't get a good snook bite going. In retrospect, I guess we should have fished the passes. Who knows?
I heard from three folks this week offering up reports and pictures. It's great to hear from you who have sent in reports, and I really appreciate it. Keep them coming! First report:
Hi Capt. Butch,
I really enjoy your web site and I look forward to your fishing reports every week. My family has been vacationing on Sanibel for the last twenty years but I did not start fishing there until about 3 years ago. The first year I only fished from the beaches. Since I was a "newbie" I was not sure how to fish. I just went to Bailey's general store and bought some shrimp and went to it. I was amazed at all of the different fish I was catching! I did not catch any real monsters but I did manage to catch some nice trout and a few small snook...I was hooked. I could not wait to get back to Sanibel the next year to fish some more!
(During the winter months, I spent a great deal of time on the Internet researching how to fish Florida's beaches and that's how I discovered your web site).
Anyway, fast forward to 4th of July week this year. We decided to vacation on Sanibel. We have never vacationed on the island during July so I did not know what to expect as far as fishing off of the beaches. I figured that the fishing would be tough and it was! For 2 days all I could catch was catfish. I was getting discouraged so I figured I would go up to the Bait Box on Sanibel and ask them for some advice. They told me the best thing to use would be frozen Thread Fin Herring so I bought a half dozen of them and headed for the beach.
It was just before noon on July 2nd when I put the first Herring on my hook. Although it was hot, the water was calm with no chop and there was a nice breeze. I waded out about waist deep and cast the Herring out as far as possible and let it sink to the bottom. About 5 minutes passed when I felt my line starting to move. Since I use a circle hook, I let the fish run a real long way before I start applying any pressure. When I started "pulling back" is when the real fireworks started. This fish immediately started peeling out line and I mean it was screaming! I had about a 175 yards of 15 lb. test line on my real and about 3/4's of it was gone before I could get the fishes head turned. The fish was a real fighter! I would get about 20 yards in and he would run out 25. It took about 10 minutes before I could start making some real progress and get the fish back to me. As soon as I got the fish to within 30 yards of me, the darn thing took off down the beach in the other direction! The fish took about half of my line out on that last run but I could tell that it was beat. I only had to fight it for about another 5 minutes before I landed this beautiful snook.
Unfortunately, I did not have a scale to weigh this fish but we did have a tape measure. The fish measured 40" from the lip to the fork of the tail. I did not measure the girth but you can see that it is thick. Just for scale purposes, I am 6'3" tall and weigh 240 lbs.
Anyway, I thought you would like to see these. My 2 boys are in the pictures. The oldest is Matt and the youngest is Christopher. As you can imagine, they were really excited to see a fish this big!
Keep those fishing reports coming! That's the only thing that gets me through these Midwestern winters.
Mark Preuss
FROM MY FRIENDS!
FROM MY FRIENDS!
Second report:
My customer Michael Williams sent in this picture of his gal Sherry with a nice keeper redfish she caught September 9th, in Bishops Harbor (near the Sunshine Skyway). Beautiful, Mike. Thank you Mike and Sherry.
FROM MY FRIENDS!
Third report:
My long-time friend Ted Sparling, of Sarasota, sent this short report and picture of a swordfish he caught in a recent tournament, waaayy offshore! Thanks, Ted!
Speaking of Old Salts. Glad to here your doing well and beating the heat.
Thought you might appreciate this picture even though its not so good.
I fished the old salt tourney out of St. Pete a couple of weeks ago. Its more like a 36 hour offshore iron man competition.
We caught this beast minutes after losing his cousin 130 miles out, 1200 feet of water. It took us 1 hour 20 to get him in. He was 10' nose to tail and around 300 lbs.
The picture was a tourney requirement which required the magazine in the pic. We tried several times to get the pic of the magazine over the fish in the water as requested but couldn't get it done. I ended up dragging him through the tuna door for the shot. Then he fell into the cooler (in smaller pieces of course).
Who would have thought we have a sword fish fishery? We hooked up on several. One boat a mile from us got seven in one night.
Take care Doug
TS
FROM MY FRIENDS!
Be sure to check out www.BestFishingBooks.com Books and gifts for fishermen from my friend Jim Dicken!
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