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Although rains early in the week forced some shuffling of my schedule, for the first time in a while the story is not weather this week. Instead, the story is water quality, which has been seriously degraded because of all the rainy weather lately. Not only are we being inundated with our own storm water runoff, we're being flooded with trillions of gallons of water per day from Lake Okeechobee, as they drain the lake down to what is considered safe levels for the tropical storm season. Result: The water in Pine Island Sound is as black as coffee, and nearly fresh. Not a good thing. It has a negative effect on bait and fishing.
So, the first trip of the week on Wednesday was my first trip with Keith and Dori Riddle, of Cape Coral just across the river. Keith's boat is up for sale over in Orlando, and he hadn't been on the water in a while. We had been forced to reschedule from Monday, and a friend who was supposed to join the Riddle's could not.
We left the dock at first light and headed for Kiesel's for bait. There's nothing quite like the exhilaration one feels while speeding across the water at 50 MPH, the cool morning air in your face, the overwhelming beauty of the Sound, and a breathtaking sunrise just off to the right. It makes you feel so alive. We got good bait without too much ado, and were off to chase snook.
We began our search on the beach. The fish were there in large numbers, but they weren't in much of an eating mood. Keith and Dori caught about 15 of the linesiders, and I think Dori got the biggest one. Once we were sure the bite was over, we headed inside to try for some redfish. I looked at a couple of flats before stopping. We found a good school, and I began chumming the fish with live and sliced shiners and pinfish. We had a very early high tide at around 10:00 AM on that flat, and we were actually fishing the first part of the falling tide. We got the fish to eat, but not well. We had about 10 fish eat our baits, but we only managed to get a few in the boat. All in all it was a good day, and the Riddles were great fun.
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I had long looked forward to my trip on Thursday with my old friends Capt. Marty and Nancy Dietz. Yes, Marty has just recently become licensed and is running charters back home in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Nancy hadn't made the last trip with Marty and his dad, and it was good to have her along. Bait was still OK at Kiesel's, but things were strange after that.
We headed out to my favorite patch of beach for snook and were surprised to find bait flipping as far as the eye could see, and hundreds of pelicans and other birds working the bait. I don't think I've ever seen so much bait concentrated on the beach like that. Well, apparently the snook had all they wanted to eat, because we only managed to catch one fish. Nancy caught it while throwing away from the beach. She also caught a couple of catfish, and we missed a snook or two, but basically, no matter how we presented our baits, we couldn't get the fish to eat.
So, it was back inside to fish for resident snook. We saw tarpon on the beach, too, and stopped to see if we could get a line on them, but they were rolling once, and then disappearing. Things were slow on the flats, too. We managed to catch 7 or 8 snook to 6 pounds, and later we got some redfish to eat and we caught 6 or 7 to 11 pounds, with Marty getting the largest one. Probably the highlight of the day for Nancy was her first encounter with manatees. I spotted them not far from where we were fishing in about 6 feet of water, and when Nancy told me she'd never seen one, I had to take her to them. There were three, and we were able to get right on top of them with the trolling motor.
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We ended the day with a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant. Marty was happy, especially with the redfish we had caught. Nancy seemed thrilled with having seen her first manatees. It was great to see the Dietzs again, and I was looking forward to seeing them again on the weekend.
Friday was a tough day. Overnight, the water had turned coffee black from the tannic acid runoff from our own rains, and from the volumes of water being dumped on us from Lake Ocheechobee. Every time the lake is drained down, we get hammered with all the fresh water, and the result is not good. This practice is destroying the seagrasses in the Caloosahatchee River, and if allowed to continue, will eventually take it's toll on the estuary that is Pine Island Sound. It always affects the bait and the fishing.
My customers were Jim and Cheryl Libertini, of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and it was our first trip together. After hearing from some of the other guides that bait had disappeared over the weekend, I expected to find shiners scarce, but we still managed to get nice bait.
The nice bait didn't do us a lot of good, though. Fishing was tough. We only managed to catch one snook, and I finally suggested we turn our attention to redfish. I managed to get a bite going late in the tide, and we were catching fish, when the weather began to threaten. The safety of my customers always has to be the first concern, and we decided to get off the water. We had put 4 or 5 reds to 8 pounds in the boat at that point. Although we had to cut our trip a little bit short, I don't think Jim or Cheryl minded, as it was a calm day, and the heat was brutal. The ride home felt wonderfully refreshing.
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Saturday night Marty and Nancy Dietz, along with Nancy's parents, and aunt and uncle, treated me to a birthday dinner at Ballenger's. Most of us had the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet, and we had a blast. It was a wonderful evening, and great to meet her family. My thanks to them for a great time.
We have pretty good tides for most of next week, but it remains to be seen what the impact of all this fresh water runoff will be over the long haul. We can only pray that the fish, bait, and estuary make a quick adjustment to it.
Stayed tuned, and tight lines.
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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