Both Thursday and Friday we started off the day with the Incoming tide in Pine Island Sound and worked the top of the tide back home to Matlacha Pass. First let me say that catching bait continues to be a breeze. I have been hitting the water at first light, making a five minute run, tossing the net three or four times and back to the house with a well full of bait in no time. A good mix of pinfish and perfectly sized shiners and of course ballyhoo, it has almost been too easy, I sure wish it would last.
We caught more snook this week than in the previous weeks but we still can't get one to the boat over the twenty-eight inch minimum. We lost a couple that pulled the circle hook that might have made the slot, but we will never know. Most of the snook are running twenty-five to twenty-seven inches (a good size fish none the less) and are really giving some great battles. About every time hooked up we get excited think it's much bigger the ways it's pulling.
In Pine Island Sound are best action came working Island points with the westerly breeze and incoming tide moving a lot of water. The top of the tide was best for us, once it peaked the bite was off and time to move on. The tides were much higher than normal with the west wind. All the snook were caught on live shiners (pilchards) free lined. We also caught several redfish in the mid-slot mixed with the snook. We tried live pinfish but no takers; we also hooked a couple large stingrays on live shiners so I did not even want to attempt fishing cut bait on bottom.
After the bite slowed in the Sound we headed for northern Matlacha Pass to catch the last of the incoming tide. Here we found good red fishing while working Island points with the same strategy as the Sound. At our last stop on Friday we hit a steady bite on reds for better than an hour. They ranged in size from twenty-four inches to a whopping thirty-three, with several double hook-ups and one triple hook-up. Although we caught several on shiners, live pinfish were easily out fishing them, both under a bobber and free-lined. Although the redfish bite was great in the Pass we never hooked or caught one snook there, strange!
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"Catch The Action" with Captain Bill Russell
