My best friend Capt. Mark Bess, my good friend from Sarasota, Capt. Tommy Stephens, and I did a research trip for my trip with Dana Mason the following day. I wanted to try to find out what the situation was with the bait, and where the fish were.

Bait, as I suspected had moved to the Sanibel Causeway. We castnetted all we needed in a few throws, and were off to my first stop. I headed to a deep cut that get lots of current flow on a good tide, and where I’ve caught and seen tons of snook during winters past. We arrived to find the water very clear, which is not a good thing. We could see snook laying everywhere.......big snook all over the place. Tommy said he’d seen more snook in that one place than he’d seen in his whole life. We fished it hard, with beautiful, big snook sized shiners, but to no avail. Those stubborn snook would not eat the first bait! Very frustrating.

And that’s the way the day went. No matter where we fished we couldn’t get the snook to eat. We only managed to catch one all morning. The rest of our catch included several trout, a flounder, and a small gag grouper. Even the big jack crevalle so abundant this time of year had disappeared. Tommy reported that he’d been having a hell of a bad time trying to find ANY fish in Sarasota Bay.

So, it was with some trepidation that I pulled into the dock the following morning. My party was Dana Mason Sr. and his son Dana Mason Jr., of Greenville, New Hampshire. I asked the boys if they had any particular species they wanted to target, and they told me they just wanted a pull on the end of their lines. I decided right there it was time to go speckled trout fishing, since you can almost always count on trout to cooperate during those tough winter days. The Masons were agreeable.

Once again, bait was plentiful between the 50 and 60 pilings at the Causeway. It was much smaller than the day before, but it was fine for trout fishing. I went straight to one of my favorite trout holes, and we spent a good part of the morning right there. It wasn’t a feeding freenzie, but the trout bite was steady, and through the course of the morning we caught and released 3 to 4 dozen trout, a flounder, and a grouper. It was a beautiful day, and the Masons had lots of fun.

The way the snook fishing has been going lately, I have a feeling I’ll be doing more trout fishing through the winter. That’s OK, though. We’re beginning to get some beautiful trout in Florida waters now that we are in the fourth year of our inshore net ban. We’re a few years behind Texas, but we’re catching up.