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It was a full work week this week, and it was with some of my best anglers and friends. There were so nice fish caught, too, so read on.
Monday and Tuesday were spent with my good friend Mike Schwartz, from Denver. He's the friend I had planned to fish stripers on Lake Powell with this July until BarHopp'R I sank! I've had to cancel that trip for this year. But, Mike, along with my friend Russ Hubbard, who was up for Wednesday, are my best anglers. These guys can fish!
Mike and I left the dock at 7 AM Monday morning, headed for the mouth of Tarpon Bay for bait. Bait was plentiful, and we were soon loaded and off to do some mangrove fishing. Mike and I hadn't done a lot of that together, and I thought he might enjoy it. We had a good new moon tide, and I anticipated a good bite. It wasn't forthcoming, though. Mike caught a couple of nice mangrove snappers, a jack crevalle, and several snook. The highlight of the mangrove fishing was a beautiful 6 pound, 24" gag grouper that just gave him fits under the trees. I'd dare say that very few people would have had a shot at landing that fish on such light gear, but Mike was all over that fish and never let it get the upper hand on him, as hard as it tried. That gag would be our dinner the next evening.
We fished a number of other places, both flats and bushes, but never really found the bite I was looking for. By day's end Mike had Slammed with 2 redfish, about 8 snook, 3 or 4 nice trout, the 2 snapper, the gag grouper, and jack. That wasn't a bad day, you understand, it just wasn't the great bite I thought would materialize. We had lost about half our bait through the course of the morning, and I couldn't figure out why. BarHopp'R II has a giant, Jacuzzi sized well in her, and I'd never lost bait in it before.
Tuesday turned out to be a very tough day for Mike and me. We got plenty of beautiful bait, had a great looking tide, and good weather, but the fish just didn't want to play. Oh, we had plenty of hits, but they were those non-committal hits that finicky snook are famous for. It's like they're killing the bait, but not eating it. It can be frustrating. I took Mike up into the north end of the Sound, again for something new, and to avoid the manatee zones in the south. I'd been on good snook up there, but they just didn't want to hang on. We later fished the flats, and couldn't get anything going there, either. We ended the morning with 1 nice redfish, 1 snook, 2 trout, and 1 ladyfish. It was enough for the Slam, but certainly a tough day of fishing! Mike is a fisherman's fisherman, though, and took it all in stride.
Tuesday evening Mike came over to the camp and we relived the days as well as other old times as I cooked the grouper and snapper he'd caught the day before. Not long after we were eating, my good friend Russ Hubbard showed up with his party for Wednesday. I was glad Mike and Russ got to meet each other since they are both very important people to me, and such great fishermen.
What a difference a day can make. Wednesday morning I met Russ, his boss Raul, and fellow employee, Steve at 7:30, and we were off to catch bait. It was once again great, and we were soon fishing. I was loosing the bait again, though, and just couldn't figure out why. Before it was over we lost half of it. Worse, I had decided to start the boys out fishing the bushes, and that wasn't working either. In the first hour or so we were only able to muster a couple of small snook, a couple of big mangrove snappers, and an undersized gag grouper.
The bushes weren't working and we were fast loosing our bait. I decided to try to find some redfish on the open flats. I thought I was going to meet with more failure at first, as I couldn't get a strike at the first stop, even after some serious chumming. I picked up and moved less than a hundred yards, and that was the trick. With a little chumming, we had the fish going crazy. For the rest of the morning the four of us just had a ball catching beautiful redfish. We had many double hookups, and several triple hookups, and we all had a blast. We fished ourselves out of live bait, and switched to cut dead shiners and pinfish, and the bite continued. When it was finally over, we had racked up 30 to 35 redfish by our best count. It was a morning to remember, and I was so glad we'd been able to pull it off for Russ' friends. Russ has since sent me a beautiful letter, which will be posted in the testimonials, and says his friends are still talking about that trip!
Although Thursday was my first trip with Wes and Marilyn Bentrude, I felt like I knew them, since I had talked to them via email for a couple of years, and had referred them to one of my friends last year. They had fished the Stickbeach, which is now all but gone, and caught plenty of snook. They seemed more interested in snook fishing, so after catching bait, I headed to a snook hole that has been very good lately. To my surprise, we soon lost any hit of air moving, and the tide was pretty weak, too. Between the two, there wasn't enough influence to keep us tight on the anchor rope from any particular direction. We did find the snook eating, but I doubted we'd be able to catch the reds on the flats without a good breeze. We did catch some nice snook, but nothing big enough to keep at that first stop.
From there we went to check out the redfishing opportunities, but the seabreeze I had hoped would materialize, never did. Why is the breeze important? Well, when you're trying to catch redfish in the shallow of the flats, you must be able to cast your livebait a long distance. You can only get those spooky redfish to come in so close to your boat. The bigger your boat, the truer that is. Also, with no breeze to put a wrinkle on the water's surface, you are much more visible to the fish, and I'd dare say easier for them to hear. Anyway, I'd venture to say that a 10 knot or better breeze will double the distance a good caster can toss a live shiner on 8 or 10 pound test.
I poled onto the flat from a long ways off, and there were redfish everywhere. Damn! But, our shiners would just catch air and die in mid-cast, and fall short of where the fish were. I kept trying, but could not get close enough to the reds to get a bait to them, and they wouldn't come to chum close to the boat. They just weren't buying. I tried a big Texas float, but think that only served to spook the fish on such a calm day.
With the tide almost done, I asked the Bentrudes if they wanted to turn their attention back to snook, and they agreed. We headed to a nearby haunt, and were greeted with a few more snook, but the big surprise came when Marilyn hooked a beauty that immediately jumped and showed us her stuff. I went into the coaching mode, and Marilyn followed my lead, and in a few minutes, she had a beautiful 32 inch, 9 pound snook at boatside. It was her biggest snook ever. Wes was quick to remind her that he had gotten a 34 incher! We also got one nice trout somewhere along the way, there. It was a good, fun day of snooking, and I know if we could have mustered some wind, we could have spanked the reds like we'd done the day before.
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With considerably less bait than I had been catching, we headed to the northern end of the Sound for snook. Although the tide chart indicated a good tide for the day, the water was hardly moving at all up there, and the bite was correspondingly bad. I hit a couple of other spots along the way with the same results.
Frustrated, I headed to the flats for redfish, hoping we'd have some breeze blowing to help the situation. Turned out Mother Nature mustered a southwest breeze of from 5 to 10, and it was enough to help our cause. I wasn't able to get the fish to go nuts, but we did get a bite going, and managed to catch 10 to 12 nice redfish. Toward the end of the tide, with still enough time to catch a few snook, I asked the Smutz gang if they wanted to leave the reds and try for snook. They were all in agreement so we took off. They managed to catch a half dozen or more snook before the tide stopped and the bite died along with it.
So, it had turned into a pretty good day with about 20 reds and snook caught. And, it had been a pretty darned good week with only one day that was really tough. Well now, if I knew how to spank those fish each and every day, what would I be doing now?
We're fast heading into summer, and the summer afternoon thunderstorms can't be too far away. That will mean early morning trips beginning at first light no matter what the tides are doing. It's the way of summer fishing here, though. By noon, it's so blazing hot that everything quits biting and just wants to lay down and take a nap. By the time you might be able to consider fishing again, here come the afternoon storms. It's definitely an early morning game for a while, now.
If you want to be able to continue to fish Florida waters please follow this link, "Manatee Zones: How You Can Help" and please take the time to become involved, even if you don't live in Florida. Let the politicians know WHY you come to Florida on vacation!
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