by Capt. Butch Rickey

Early in the week I was back on Sarasota Bay with a lovely female angler. We hit the water a little later than I like to, but when we got to the flats bait was everywhere. I swear, there is more bait in Sarasota Bay and Pine Island Sound than I've ever seen. Do you suppose that the Florida net ban could be responsible, or could it have something to do with the red tides? I made one throw of my 10 foot net and had so much bait trapped that I could hardly lift it into the boat. I filled both wells and we went fishing. I love it when it goes like that!

We started in a hole in the Buttonwood Harbor area on the last half of an outgoing tide. I threw a couple of handfuls of live and dead shiners for chum, then threw a couple on hooks. Boom! Boom! We immediately hit redfish. We sat in that hole for three hours and caught around 20 redfish, several snook, several trout, and some jacks. The biggest red was 29", and my lady angler started complaining early in the morning that her hand and arm hurt. By 10:30 she'd had enough fun and we called it a day.

Later in the week I did a trip to Pine Island Sound. The target my party wanted was snook. Again, bait was so thick that two throws of the net gave us more bait than we could possibly use. We caught around 15 snook in the early part of the morning, but the snook bite was very slow. We would normally have caught 30 to 40 snook there at this time of year, but they just weren't in a biting mood. We decided to go into the backcountry and try to find some snook there.

I hit spot after spot without even seeing a fish. Finally, with the tide dropping off the flats pretty well, I decided it was getting about right to go pothole hopping. The first pothole usually gives up lots of big trout, but not today. We caught a few speckled trout there, but most were not big enough to make the slot. Finally, as it was getting really hot, I decided to hit some of my old honey-holes. The first one, laying in just inches of water, paid off big. We caught at least a dozen nice reds, a big mangrove snapper, and a beautiful flounder.

But, our fun was cut short by fast building mid-day thunderstorms. We made a run for it, but I was forced to duck in at St. James City to find cover. We parked under an unused boathouse and waited out the storm. All in all, we had a great day, we just didn't find any big snook.

The next day I was back on Sarasota Bay with the same party. They still wanted to find some big snook, but it was not to be. We just couldn't get away from those darned ole' redfish. The first spot I hit after catching bait was loaded with reds. They were blowing the shiners up on top of the water. Boy does that get your adrenaline pumping. We caught on the order of 15 to 20 reds before continuing our search for snook. We did see some, but they were not about to eat a bait, even a shiner.

While leaving a hole on the flats I noticed a large school of something moving at us in about a foot of water. I figured it was jack crevalle because I've run across big schools of big jacks every time I've been on the water in Sarasota Bay for the last few weeks. As they approach we threw 3 shiners into their midst, and bam! An instant triple hookup on three large jacks. It was a Chinese fire drill for a few minutes, but we all landed our fish.

A short time later we spotted a small school of tailing redfish just off the port side. I maneuvered the boat as close as I dared on the trolling motor. We made our first casts, and got an immediate hookup on what turned out to be a 30" red. We caught several others before they left us.

It was another great day on the water, but the illusive snook outfoxed us. We had seen many of them blasting baits on the mangrove shoreline, and had worked it hard, but they just wouldn't eat. We made one more stop and got a beautiful trout for the table before the storms once again ended our day.

As time marches on toward fall I'm betting that the redfishing will get even better. Bait should remain plentiful, and I should be able to make my clients happy.

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