The trip was on Friday with Bill "Ozzie" Oswald, of Chicago, Illinois. I met Ozzie at 6:30 AM at the Circle K at Summerlin and John Morris, as he and his family were staying in Cape Coral. We were in the water a little after 7.
The forecast was good and it was a beautiful morning with the promise of being JAPDIP (Just Another Perfect Day In Paradise). We were two days away from the full moon, which I explained to Ozzie would probably mean a slow first half of the day, but we should see some redfish action on the second half of the tide.
By the time we got to the flats the water had moved in noticeably on the strong tide. We began the morning with looking for big trout and redfish in the many potholes that dot the flats. But, to my surprise trout were few and every hole I fished was over run with ladyfish. When there are that many ladyfish present it's hard to catch anything else. We stayed with the pothole action for maybe an hour and seeing how fast the tide was coming at us, moved on to search for snook and redfish.
At our next stop I situated Ozzie off my port side on a deep hole that has been full of redfish for some time. I got smacked hard the first couple of casts, so I knew the fish were there, but I also knew they could be a bit cranky. I instructed Ozzie on how to fish the hole and went hunting for the next spot.
I got a couple of hard hits early on at that spot, but that was it, and never hooked up. The fish were as I had anticipated, just not in the mood. I made a short move and after switching from the Gulp New Penny to the DOA Cal Stark Naked, tagged a nice 24 inch snook. I called Ozzie to come join me.
Still on that spot I also caught a couple of keeper trout, and hooked what I thought was a big redfish. But, when I got it close enough to the boat to see, saw that I had foul hooked a nice mullet right behind the dorsal fin! Geez. That's about like hooking a passing 55 Packard while snook fishing off the old Swing Bridge at Fort Myers beach back in the old days. Ozzie was getting hits, but not hooking up, and I never did get him away from that hole.
I wanted to find a redfish bite, if possible. As I went by Ozzie, I made some recommendations on where to fish, and told him I'd call him to me as soon as I found a bite of more than one fish. I worked my way down an edge with the breeze at my back. At the first stop I bagged another nice trout, and jumped a snook about three feet long. The barb never had a chance to find home, as he jumped at me.
I moved on down, fishing and moving in search of redfish. Finally, I stuck the first red and brought it in. It was short, but told me they were there. I caught another not long afterward, and called Ozzie. But, he told me there were snook all over this hole he was fishing, and that he could see them cruising along the edge. I called him several times trying to get him to come join me, but the lure of all those snook was just too great. He never did catch one. Meanwhile, I bagged a keeper redfish and another trout. I called Ozzie, again. Then, the next thing I know here comes a Ghanoe with three guys in it, puttering along at about the same speed I paddle, with their overworked little single cylinder two-stroke motor complaining loudly. They ran right by me no more than 150 feet away. That's way too close in a foot and a half of water. I've many times seen a boat a mile away scare everything on the flats as it goes by.
Ozzie finally gave up on the snook. So far, he'd caught one keeper trout and let a nice redfish get away at the boat as he was reaching for the leader. He was coming to join me. I hoped the fish would be recovered from the Ghanoe invasion by the time Ozzie got to me. We fished a while, moving every few minutes about the length of a cast, without a fish. I was wondering what happened to my redfish bite that seemed to have begun. With the wonder came the answer, when two blacktip sharks each about 5 ft. long, came in and raided my fish. I told Ozzie that would be the end of fishing in this area. The sharks will run everything off the flat. They are indiscriminate feeders. Opportunistic omnivores, and nothing is safe from them. Mother Nature has equipped the prey to know that.
The sharks were very persistent, and driven by their desire for food. They just kept trying to attack my fish on the stringer. We picked up stakes and took off for another area to fish, but it became immediately obvious that we weren't going to outrun sharks in the kayaks. I hoped they'd loose interest, but they didn't. They followed us for a full mile. I tied my fish right up close to the surface and right at the boat where it would be harder for the sharks to get at them. Every time they'd make a raid on my fish I'd smack at them with the paddle or smack 'em on the head with a lure, which would scare them away for all of twenty seconds.
At our next and last spot of the day I was pretty much the decoy for Ozzie. The fish just keep pestering me. Pretty quickly, Ozzie hooked up to what was his redfish of a lifetime. He fought it for a good long while, and it was obviously a good fish. He got it close to the boat and got to get a good look at it. Probably 30 plus inches. And, then I heard him moan. The hook had pulled. I had coached him to strike a redfish hard two or three times in order to get the barb buried in that leathery mouth. I figured he had not done that, or hadn't struck hard enough.
We fished a bit more, but the sharks had ruined the whole area by then. The tide had run out of gas and was in cardiac arrest.
It had been a beautiful day on the water. I'd seen three sea turtles, lots of ospreys and eagles, caught 6 redfish and 5 or 6 trout, and a bunch of ladyfish, and done battle with sharks. Ozzie had a tough day with 1 trout on the stringer and two nice redfish lost. He had also been hooked in to something earlier in the day that he couldn't figure out. I had instructed him to grip the spool of the reel, and support the reel from stress, and pull straight back through an unbent rod and break it off. He eventually did that.
But, that evening as I cleaned the boats and everything that had been in them, I think I found out the root cause of his loosing at the least the second redfish, and perhaps the first. I don't remember if the first was before or after the break-off. Each trip I rinse the rods/reels, shake out the excess water and pat them dry. I check the reels over, and make sure handles aren't squeaking, drags are properly set, etc. Well, I found the drag on the reel Oz had been using set so tight I could hardly pull line off the reel. That could have easily been the cause of the pulled hook.
We've got some pretty good diurnal tides for the first few days of the coming week, so I'm hoping the fishing will bust loose.