Fishing Report for Week Ending 4/18/98
by
Capt. Butch Rickey
I finished last week's report saying that Fredrik and Elizabeth Wallenberg would be fishing with Capt. Tommy Stevens on Easter Sunday. Well, the trip went off without a hitch, and Tommy did a great job for Fredrik and Liz. He found a big school of redfish hold up on a shallow flat on the low tide, and they caught 19 of the bronze torpedoes and one snook before the action was over. Great job, Tommy! That was all on silver and gold spoons, too. Tommy said it was the best trip of his young guiding career.
While Tommy was having a great day in Sarasota, I was back down in the Sound struggling along with everyone else. My guests were Mike Krug, and his lovely wife and daughter Cathy and Kelly, from Worth, Illinois. Mike is the serious fisherman; the girls were more interested in just enjoying a day out on the water.
I had spent a couple hours trying to catch bait, and I had only 5 shiners for all my effort. Compounding the bait problem, none of the bait shops had any shrimp. Seems that with all the wind we'd had the shrimpers were unable to get out either. I finally decided to get out my fine net and catch some of the little glass minnows that were everywhere.
We hit several snook holes, and lost all five baits without a snook in the boat. I moved to the trout flats thinking I could find some action with the glass minnows. The first one in the water was immediately eaten by a nice trout. I thought I was onto something, but it turned out to be the only one caught. Everyone had lots of hits on the minnows, but they are so soft and hard to keep on the hook, that they just couldn't get the fish hooked before they stole the bait.
So, the only fish boated were the trout and a jack crevalle. But, you know what, the Krugs were great people, and we had a great time in spite of the slow catching.
The next two days belonged to Ken and Cyndie Wedholm of Charleston, SC. Ken and Cyndie were as nice as they come, and Cyndie loves to fish. Ken said she always manages to outfish him. You know how the girls are. I'd gotten nice looking bait on the beach, so bait wouldn't be an issue. We had a warm east/southeast wind at 15 knots.
We fished hard that first day, and by the end of the trip Ken and Cyndie had boated 2 redfish to 26 inches, a big jack crevalle, 3 nice flounder, an 18 inch trout, 3 snook to 26 inches, and had lost a snook. I seem to remember there were a few swings and misses along the way, too. We had a great time.
Tuesday, Ken was back without Cyndie, who had elected to keep her mom company instead of leaving her alone. The bait had disappeared overnight from it's beachfront home the day before. We elected to fish with artificials and look for bait as we moved around from place to place. We never did find any bait all the way to nearly Captiva Pass, and the wind had kicked to around 20 knots. We finally found some trout that would eat our jigs and caught around 20 of them, as well as a jack crevalle, and 3 ladyfish.
As we drifted up to a mangrove I had decided we would make it the last stop of the day. I instructed Ken to cast his jig to where he could pull it right down along the front edge of the mangrove key. He did, and it would be the last cast of the day. After a couple of turns of the reel handle, "Boom!" a snook attacked the jig and headed right up under the mangroves into all the oyster and barnacle covered roots. Kenny had no angle to work the fish from. In our position, the fish had a serious advantage. Knowing the only chance he had of a possible save would be to get the rod tip as deep into the water as possible and fight the fish in that position I started shouting, "Rod in the water! Rod in the water! Rod in the water!" Suddenly and without any warning Kenny jumped into the water feet first. His feet caught bottom at around chest high. I know I must have looked shocked as I stood in the boat looking down at Kenny, rod bent to the trees, and Ken looked up at me and asked, "Capt. Butch, why did you want me to jump in the water?"
"Kenny, I said, "Rod in the water!" not YOU in the water!" I think it was about then we both went into a hysterical fit of laughter over the whole thing. The best part is that Kenny got the rod low to the water, never got my reel in the saltwater, and got the snook out of the trees and landed it. It was nearly 27 inches long. I'm sure that's a day that Ken and I will never forget. It also illustrates Ken's willingness to do what he thought he heard the guide saying in order to land the fish. We turned her lose after taking pictures.
Wednesday, I was out looking for bait at the crack, but things had changed once again, and I only had a handful of shiners when I showed up at the dock to pick up Doug Johnson, his father-in-law Dick, and brother-in-law Jerry. I came back to the ramp at 9 AM because I couldn't for the life of me remember if I'd told Doug to meet me at nine or ten o'clock. While I was waiting, my friend Capt. Kevin Holley came in to pick up his party. He had stumbled onto lots of bait right at the Matlacha ramp where he launches his boat. He only had one angler, and offered me some bait. He gave me three scoops of shiners with his bait net, and that lasted us all day. Thanks, Kevin.
Doug and his outlaws drew a pretty nice day, considering the wind and weather we've been dealing with for so long. We had southeast wind at 10 to 15, and a high nearing 90. Wow! Out on the water we had pretty good action. Doug and the boys rounded up 8 big jack crevalles, 2 ladyfish, 6 trout up to four pounds, and 9 snook in the boat. They also lost 9 snook. Of course, every time someone lost or missed a fish, he had to pay the price with the other guys. All in all, we had a great day on the water, and Doug, Dick, and Jerry were a blast. I hope I'll see them again in the future.
After taking Thursday off, I was at the Punta Rassa ramp early Friday morning not knowing if my good friend David Arcemant would be there or not. David and I fished together for the first time last July, when he did his first ever "Guide of the Month" feature for his Gulf Coast Anglers Association. David was in town for the week to exhibit at the Florida Sportsman Show at the Lee Civic Center. I had volunteered to help however I could Saturday and Sunday at the show, and we had planned to fish together Friday. The problem was that I had been forced to make an unforeseen move just before David hit town, and the contact number he had for me was no longer working. I also, didn't have a number for him, or know where he was staying. I was counting heavily on David being at the ramp waiting, and counting heavily on me being at the ramp to take him fishing. David was sitting there when I pulled in, just as I knew he would be.
After catching up on things and meeting David's assistant, Mark Tieman, we were off to try to fish for snook with topwater plugs. Problem was, the wind was at 20 to 25 knots right out of the south, and fishing with anything would be difficult. The water was just too choppy to work a topwater plug. We finally settled into spoons after catching some trout on jigs with swimming Bass Assassin and/or Berkley Powerbait bodies attached. It was a tough day to fish, and we called it early. At that point we'd caught several jacks and ladyfish, a half dozen trout, 2 redfish, and lost a snook. It was still fun being out, meeting Mark, and seeing David again. Mark, a man after my own heart, was throwing baitcast tackle, and had some real nice Castaway rods along.
We all wound the week down Saturday at the big show, which turned out to be not so big. The turnout was a bit disappointing. Most of the exhibitors I talked to said it was much busier last year. All we could do was hope for a better day Sunday.
If you have questions or comments, or would like to book a trip, please email me at capt@barhoppr.com.
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