Pine Island Sound to Sarasota Bay

July 16th 2008

I did manage a couple of trips this week, although they weren't the ones originally scheduled.

Capt. Marc Geldon of Snook Blaster Charters had called me about doing a two day, two boat trip with him. That was great as it would replace the days that my friend John Hitt had to cancel. We were to fish Thursday and Friday, with three anglers per boat on both days.

Thursday morning came, and our guys Guy, Clay, Andy, and Justin Newsome were the only ones who showed up. Plans had abruptly changed for a couple of the guys. So, we would have two anglers per boat. I drew Andy and his son, Justin. Marc and I headed to the B Span flats to begin our hunt for bait. And, there was plenty there, albeit small. There were a few decently sized shiners swimming with the small fries, but the best surprise was lots of ballyhoo. I kept a bunch of them, in case we wanted to chase redfish. And, once we were done with bait and I asked the boys if they had a preference as to what we chased, Justin said he'd never caught a redfish, and would sure love to catch one. Decision made, and look out ballyhoo.

We headed to a spot in McKeever Keys where I've been on redfish every time I've had the right wind to fish it for the last month and a half. I was sure the fish would be there. I took up residency on my spot, and Marc and his boys settled on a shoreline on a small key right behind us. I only took a couple of minutes before Justin had his first redfish. A short time later Just missed another. Then his Dad boated a nice keeper redfish. We also caught a few snapper, another red, and a catfish, just to keep it interesting.

Since the boys both had a redfish, I asked if they wanted to stay and work on more redfish, or go chase snook. Since they'd not caught snook before, we decided on that. Marc and his boys had also caught several reds, and were content to stay and keep after them. When we made the decision to go after snook, the breeze was from the northeast. Perfect for chasing snook on the beaches. But, by the time we got to Redfish Pass, the wind had flopped around to the southeast, and picked up some. We headed on south, but once we cleared Blind Pass, the ground swells were such that I wasn't comfortable trying to anchor and fish. We headed north.

We fished a shoreline on North Captiva without so much as a hit, and moved on once again. At the next stop the swells were much more manageable, and we managed to catch a few snook, snapper, and a jack crevalle, mostly on pinfish. Oddly, nothing much was interested in our shiners. And, after a while they weren't interested in our pinfish, either. But, not before Andy tangled with a big female snook that sent the drag of the Stella screaming. Unfortunately, in his excitement, Andy dropped slack to the big snook repeatedly as he tried to master the "pump and reel" technique, and she wound up getting away fairly close to the boat. Bummer!

We were fighting the clock. Guy had told us we needed to be back at the ramp by noon, to keep peace in the family. We didn't have a lot of time left. We decided to spend a while trying to catch another redfish or two, but the redfish had other ideas. We hit several spots, chumming and fishing our ballyhoo, without more than a nibble from what was probably pinfish. We wrapped up the day on the flats at Chino Island, where Marc and the boys had managed to catch a few trout. We got there too late, and in the mid-day heat, the bite was off. We headed home.

It had not been an easy day, and we had covered a whole lot of miles. In retrospect, I should have stayed inside and worked on the reds. But, the lure of putting my guys on a bunch of snook was just too much. As it worked out, Marc and I had about the same catch, other than a few trout. All the guys were great and were fun to spend the morning with.

Thursday night I had calls and emails from my buddy Capt. John "GiddyUp" Bunch, who among other things was having boat problems, and needed me to take a Friday trip with Dr. Gary Shierling and his son, Cannon. With Friday freed up by a last minute change of plans, I was happy to take the trip.

I had fished with Gary a time or two back ten years ago, and had some great trips. Gary had tried a number of times over the years to book me again, but I never had an open day. I guess he gave up. I was looking forward to seeing him after all this time, but knew that with the lousy outgoing tide that would be running from 8:19 for 9 hours, it would be a very tough time getting something to eat.

We headed right back to the B Span for bait. I had frozen my left over ballyhoo from Thursday, and brought them along, just in case. Gary had told me that he wanted to try to take something home for dinner, and had no interest in going outside after snook. So, that meant trying to catch redfish, and perhaps trout if the reds didn't want to play.

With Cannon chumming, we quickly got enough shiner, pinfish, and more ballyhoo for a morning of fishing. I couldn't wait to get back to the grounds I'd fished the day before, where I'd shown Capt. Marc the wonders of fishing with ballyhoo. I knew the fish were there, and felt sure I could get them to eat, again. But, the fish definitely had ideas of their own.

Cannon managed one small redfish shortly after we got started. Gary and Cannon managed a few mangrove snapper, missed another redfish, and Cannon let a big redfish get away not far from the boat, as we worked the area over really well. The fish just didn't want to eat.

Finally, with only two keeper snapper and no redfish in the well, we decided to see if we could get on a late morning trout bite. We first headed back to the Chino flats, where we did catch some ladyfish and trout, but only managed one keeper trout. Just before noon we moved to the flats in front of Regla to try again, and caught a few more trout, but nothing to take home. Actually, it was an all to typical bad tide summer day!

Exhausted from the heat, we decided it was time for lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant. Gary said he'd not been there in years. Actually, he said he'd not been on the water hardly at all in a couple of years because of his own health problems. I had the calamari salad plate, which is beyond description! J.D. never disappoints.

That was it. Short and sweet. Thwart the heat! Still beats the heck out of anything else you could be doing!


Capt. Butch Rickey
The BarHopp'R
Phone: 239-415-7282
Alt: 239-633-5851
Email: capt@barhoppr.com
Website: http://www.barhoppr.com/