FLORIDA FISHING REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 1/26/08
by
Capt. Butch Rickey
It was another short week for us guides. Heavy fog several days kept many of us in port. I wound up fishing Tuesday, and conducting a dockside seminar on Thursday.
My Tuesday trip was with an old friend, Gerard Ripo, and his buddies Mark Pidro and Sean Martin. Local boys! I had fished with Sean once before on our last trip, but this was the first time for meeting Mark. At the dock that morning neither bait nor fishing reports were very good. We opted to fish artificials.
We had one of those classic wicked winter outgoing tides that was going to settle at almost a full foot below the mean low water mark. There would be a lot of dry land showing that you don't see at any other time of year. The challenge is always where to fish.
We headed up into the Sound to one of my favorite areas for such extreme tides, and began there tossing two different Exude RT slugs and a RattleTrap. There were quite a few small hits, and a few good fish missed, but as we worked the area Gerard, Sean, and Mark managed to catch a couple of winter snook, 1 tiny snapper that managed to eat a jig as big as he was, and 3 nice trout.
From there on the lowest part of the water we went pothole fishing. We worked the uptide end of a large pothole, and although we didn't have a fierce bite as I'm accustomed to there, the hole was full of very nice keeper trout, and the boys caught quite a few before we moved on to the next pothole. At that hole, which is usually full of outsized trout, we only managed one, but it was a beauty.
We moved on, looking for a grouper bite, but the tide had turned as we fished the last hole, and the bite seemed to turn off with it. We managed only one nice trout and a flounder that was a little short. By the time we had worked that area well, we were on a bite of our own, and ready for lunch. Sean had put an order in that morning for enough fish to feed his grandmother and family. We had done that, as the boys had put six very nice trout into the well with the shrimp we had as backups. We were off to the Waterfront Restaurant.
After a great, leisurely lunch, the boys decided we'd head home, as they had work related stuff to do. Back at the dock Gerard gave me a couple of his reels to service. One was a Quantum PTS-40 with a malfunctioning drag.
WINTER FISHING IS HERE!
I was back at the ramp on Thursday morning for my first trip with Mike and Anne Ripley. It was to be a full blown instructional trip about winter pothole fishing. Mike and Anne are always here during January and February.
When I began preparing the boat that morning it was almost raining it was so humid. Everything was wet. But, visibility was fine. But, by the time I was fueled, loaded, and in the water there was a heavy fog moving in. It was hard to tell just how bad it was while it was still dark. But, I knew from talking to others at the ramp that it had been pea soup for most of the day on Wednesday. I didn't like how this was developing. By the time Mike and Anne arrived, we were pretty well socked in.
We waited. And, chatted. And, waited. With safety as my first concern, it was not looking good for getting our trip in. So, we decided to have a dockside seminar while we waited. We managed to scare of a small chart of the area, and I went to work. Mike and Anne both seemed to be really enjoying this alternative, and Mike repeatedly made comments about what he was learning. I was having fun.
Before we knew it, it was nearing eleven o'clock, and we called it a day. Mental overload is always a possibility when you're throwing a bunch of stuff at people. I figured we were nearing that point. Mike and Pam were just great, and I was glad I got to spend the morning with them, even if it wasn't fishing. We'll try again in a couple of weeks.
Mike and Anne headed off to Bass Pro to buy some of the tackle I'd showed them, and I headed home to work on reels. I got to Gerard's Cabo on Friday morning. I dis-assembled the drag assembly and the only thing I found obviously wrong was that some of the drag elements were stuck together and not functioning. But, that wouldn't have been the likely cause for the problem Gerard described. I mounted the reel on a rod so that I could give it a proper test, set the drag, and pulled through the rod. Mystery solved. Gerard had either forgotten or had not known that you can't spool the superbraids like Power Pro straight onto a spool without some mono backing. That's what he had done, and once the drag was set to a normal operating tension, the whole bundle of line was turning on the spool. Just thought I'd pass that along in case some of you are new to the braids.
Well, that was it. I have three trips scheduled for next week, as it stands right now. Hopefully, the weather will allow us to get our trips in, and that the fish will bite. We've had a lot of cold fronts this winter, and some record cold weather. It's anyone's guess from day to day. Stay tuned.
Be sure to check out www.BestFishingBooks.com, Books and gifts for fishermen from my friend Jim Dicken!