2:53 PM on 4/29/97
Fishing Report for Week Ending 1/5/97
Fishing Report for Week Ending 1/5/97
by Capt. Butch Rickey
I can't believe it's December 30, and it's supposed to hit 86 in Ft. Myers today. It's great to be a guide in Florida. It's Monday, and I'm taking Bob Myers, of Powell, Ohio, fishing.
We left the dock at 7:00 AM and went straight to the Sanibel Causeway in search of shiners. They had been holding under the third span. But the bait was gone. There were no shiners to be found anywhere around the causeway. Fortunately, the birds led us to some of the best bait I've had all year on the south side of the spoil island between the second and third spans. Man what beautiful bait we got!
At the first stop near McKeever Keys, we found lots of big, beautiful speckled trout. The were hungry, and feisty. We left several holes while the fish were biting in search of redfish and snook. Later in the morning we fished a canal that borders an island in the Sound. I expected snook, but we got big jack crevelle, instead, along with a small grouper.
The prize of the day came as I poled my ProCat toward a pothole behind Regla Island. I spotted a large redfish tailing on the far side of the hole in the turtlegrass. I pointed the fish out to Bob, explaining that it was a large fish that was actively feeding. I asked Bob if he wanted to go catch that fish. He excitedly asked how we would do that. I told him that we would rig one of the poles with a 1/0 baitholder hook, bite the tail fan off of a shrimp, thread him onto the hook and rig him Texas style, then get into the water and walk to the fish. Once within range, we'd cast in front of, and beyond the fish, then bring the shrimp back to within a foot or so of the fish and let it settle. The fish would sniff it out and eat. At that point I think he thought I was full of it, but he anxiously agreed to go and give it a try. I asked Bob to allow me to make the cast and hook the fish, since it was the only redfish tailing on the flat as far as we could see in any direction. Again, Bob agreed.
We left the boat, and did a quiet flats shuffle toward the fish, which was working its way toward us. Once I was within comfortable casting range, I took aim, and let go an absolutely perfect cast just beyond and in front of the fish. She didn't spook. Then I carefully reeled the shrimp up to within a couple of feet in front of the big red with my Shimano Stradic 2000FE. I let the shrimp settle. Within 2 seconds, the water exploded as the big red pounced on the shrimp like a lion killing a lamb. I struck the fish swiftly two times, and handed the rod to Bob. Before he ever turned the reel handle he said in amazement, "That's the damnedest thing I ever saw. You told me in the boat how you were going to catch that fish. Then you came out here and did exactly what you said you would do, and you caught that fish. I can't believe it." After a few minutes of thrashing and bashing her big tail in that shallow water, Bob subdued the beautiful red. We took her back to the boat for pictures and measurements. She was 30 inches, and just a couple ounces shy of 12 pounds. Oddly, after we had the red totally revived, she didn't want to leave us. She just laid in the shallow water at our feet, seeming content to have made Bob's day. She finally swam away, but not without some coaxing.
Once the tide started in we hit a couple of snook in a cut between a couple of mangrove keys. We finished the day with a total of 25 or more trout, 1 grouper, 4 big jacks, 2 snook, and the big red. Not a bad day!
The next day I had Jeff Lane, of Stanford, CT, and his beautiful girlfriend Peg Bessey, from Maine. This was the third trip for Jeff, but his first trip to Pine Island Sound. The tide pattern was changing and didn't go low enough for the reds to tail actively, although we did see a couple. Jeff and Peg were thrilled to get their first snook, and at the end of the day had bagged 13 snook, more than 24 beautiful trout, 1 flounder, and 1 jack. They had been out on an offshore charterboat the day before, and said that offshore fishing just couldn't compare to backcountry fishing. I certainly agree.
The last trip of the week was with Ben Winings and his 9 year old son Andy , from Franklin, IN. We had an absolutely lousy tide. Matter of fact, we had lousy tides for several days, and many of the guys were complaining about the slow fishing. But thanks to the considerable angling skills of both Ben and his son Andy, we had a pretty good day.
We just kept moving from spot to spot, not giving any particular spot very long until we found fish that would eat. By early afternoon the father and son team had racked up an impressive score of 1 redfish 25" long (1 lost), 4 snook, 1 flounder, a 16" gag grouper, 3 nice river jacks, and 38 speckled trout to 20 inches. That's a total of 48 fish on an absolutely dead tide. Way to go guys. You made me look good! Thanks to Sanibel Causeway Bait and Tackle for the trip.
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