First up on Monday were John Hanson, and his friend Wes Iijima, a couple of great guys from Eden Prairie, Minnesota. It was my first time to fish with them. I could tell right away these were good guys to have in the boat, and knew we'd have fun.
Suffering from pulled tendons in my left elbow from throwing the castnet full of snot grass, I decided to forgo the B Span flat and the Tarpon Bay flats, and check out Chino Island. I knew the bait should be in there good by now, and that it will likely be around until October or even November. We left the dock at 0630 as dawn began to break behind us. It's my favorite time of the day, riding along in the near dark, and seeing the sun rising over my right shoulder as we round the corner at York Island. It can take your breath away!
I settled on the flat at Chino and began getting out my chum, net, etc. But, before I could mix chum we had bait flipping all over the place. I knew that most of what was on top would be threadfin herring, but I also knew there should be plenty of shiners underneath them. I quickly mixed way to much chum in my excitement, and with Wes chumming it didn't take long to load up the Talon's baitwell. We were ready to take on the fish!
We headed to one of my favorite low incoming tide spots for snook, but the tide had been coming in since well before sunrise, and was already about too high by the time we got there. John and Wes did manage to catch a snook and a jack there before we moved on.
Our next stop was the best of the day. We had a good bite there for some time, and had a jack attack early, catching quite a few. John and Wes also caught several snook there, with the largest at 28.5" snook caught by John, and topped off with two redfish!
Once the bite dwindled we moved on to see if we could catch come more redfish. We tossed live baits, cut baits, and lures and boated a 25" redfish, and lost one. After than it was all catfish, and that means it's time to move on.
With the morning slipping away we decided to finish up trying for more snook. Although we didn't set the world on fire, we did boat another half dozen or so snook as we fished around the area. When the tide came to a stop, so did the catching.
It had been a pretty good day compared to most days for the last few weeks. And, John and Wes did a great job of making the bites count.
I wound up with Tuesday off on short notice, as a personal situation caused my customer to change his trip plans at the last minute. I wasn't able to fill the day on short notice. It was to be our first trip together, and I know from how he handled the situation he is a great guy. I hope he can make it down in the future.
I had been looking forward to Wednesday for a long time. My friends of ten years, Ron and Pat Hunter, from Palmetto, were coming to fish. We'd been trying to pull off a trip for a year, and the weather Gods have continually conspired against us. Ron and Pat are extended family, and I was glad we were going to finally get a day out together. Ron and Pat had gotten married recently, and I swear they were both glowing as they got in the boat!
We headed up to Chino in the breaking dawn, and took up position on the flat. Pat, a veteran chummer, took over the chumming duties and I went to work with the net. The bait wasn't quite as willing as it had been on Monday, but there was plenty around, and we were soon loaded and ready to fish.
I took Ron and Pat to a beautiful spot in Ding Darling, that is not only full of big snook, but has been giving me big trout and keeper snook every time I've managed to get in there this spring. But, Wednesday morning, we had a southeast breeze that made it still in Ding Darling, and before we could find out if the fish were going to eat we had a hot bite from the noseeums. My God! It's amazing how quickly they can come out of the mangroves and devour you, almost as if it's on a coordinated command. We all quickly agreed that no amount of snook action was worth that misery, and hi-tailed it out of there. It looked as if fishing in the mangroves would not be an option.
One of the main objectives for Ron and Pat was food for the table. Food orders get harder to fill every year with the constantly changing regulations. You certainly can't go out there and load up on a bunch of fish like we could in the old days. The easiest way to fill food orders these days is with trout and redfish. We decided to chase redfish.
We settled on a flat with a great hole in it that I took 72 redfish from one day years ago. And, as is so often the case, the fish are always in the same part of the hole. But, when I got there, I couldn't see the hole, and had to wing it. I settled in the hole, and then realized it had been filled with "tumble seaweed" by all the winds we've had from the constant fronts. We put out some bait, and chunked some lures, and managed to loose a few baits to the little bait thieves, and catch two trout. Time to move on.
We headed to another beautiful redfish flat to the north, and I got eyeball to eyeball with some of them as I came in. The fish were there. We went to work throwing live shiners, both nose-hooked and tail hooked, as well as cut bait and a gold Bagley spoon with rattles. Ron didn't mess around, and soon had a hell of a good redfish on. After a protracted battle and some huffing and puffing, Ron subdued the beautiful 12 pound redfish. But, damn! It had to go back!
A short time later Pat put a redfish of nearly 26 inches into the boat, and later another. The last fish was a nice trout that also went into the well. We were whittling away at our meat order, but we didn't yet have a keeper snook.
Nor would we. Those were the last fish of the day! We went way north on the east side of the Sound and fished several spots that have all had plenty of snook on them, and I mean big snook. But, we couldn't buy a bite. At the last stop we did manage to get some snook to blast our chum, but couldn't get them to do the final deed.
We were now past the noon hour and Ron and Pat needed to get on the road toward home. So, we called it a day, and went to the ramp where I cleaned some very nice fish. We've had some awesome days together in terms of catching. We didn't set the world on fire on this day, but we got some good fish, and filled the dinner order, and more importantly, had a few hours to enjoy our friendship and love of fishing together. That's a great day any way you cut it!
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were to be spent with Danaca Tassara, and her boyfriend Ken, from the Rapidas de Grande, Michigan. They are avid anglers, and have fished all over the place, and caught a large variety of fish. Like me, they love the shallow water fishing and the backcountry.
We loaded up and headed off into the near darkness toward Chino Island for bait. Once there, Danaca took over chumming duties while Ken did a little jigging for trout. Bait was everywhere, and it didn't take long to load the well. Oddly, it was smaller bait than we'd caught the day before. I wondered if it were because I was shallower on the flat than I usually fish.
With plenty of bait in the well, we headed to our first snook hole of the day. The water there was barely crawling. Not good. We worked the area over pretty well, and Ken and Danaca managed to catch several snook, several jack crevalle, and several keeper mangrove snapper. But, we never tangled with any of the many out-sized snook that live there.
At that first spot I learned that Danaca loves to jig fish, so I decided to take her to a spot where she would have a reasonable expectation of catching something on the jig, including snook, gag grouper, jacks, and trout. We did catch a few jack crevalle and a couple of small grouper, but couldn't get a bite going. No snook!
We moved on and turned out attention to redfish. I went to where I knew there were schooling reds, and found them easily. We went to work with live and cut baits, while Danaca worked a jig. After seeing several redfish sneak by right in front of us, Danaca caught one on her jig. It was a beauty, and went into the well. We caught two more and lost one, all on shiners.
From there it got tough as we neared the top of the tide. We struck out at the next stop farther north, and then headed to the Waterfront Restaurant for a great lunch. After some food and relaxation, we decided to hit the 19th hole, where although we had snook blowing up our chum, we only managed to get one of them to eat.
Friday morning we were ready to do it all, again. We traced our route to Chino to catch bait, and I decided to go a foot or so deeper in hopes of catching bigger shiners. Not only was the bait bigger, but it was all over the place. With Danaca chumming, we were soon loaded and ready to fish, and had plenty of live chum.
With the wind blowing fairly briskly right from the east, I decided to try to fish in Ding Darling, again. There was a guide boat at the mouth of the creek as we entered, so we went on down a ways where we wouldn't bother them. Not only did we have pretty good snook action with quite a bit of chumming to get them going, Danaca and Ken also caught several jack crevalle, several keeper snapper, and several nice speckled trout. Ken was liking that spot, and it is beautiful. After the first few fish our nearby guide picked up and took off. They weren't catching!
Once the bite slowed with the rise of the tide, we moved on. Our next stop gave us several snook before it slowed. We moved on to another area and managed to catch one small redfish for the Slam, and one snook. We kept moving and working and at our next stop we got on a pretty good snook bite for a while, and got our first snook double. But, nothing was lasting very long, and we kept moving. Our next and last stop gave us one more snook, and by the clock we were out of moving water, and therefore out of bite.
We headed back to the Waterfront Restaurant, which Ken and Danaca had very much enjoyed the day before, and had another great lunch. Rested and full we decided we'd hit another different 19th hole to see if we could bag a keeper snook. We headed up the east side in Matlacha Pass, and went to work on a nice spot that can have virtually anything there, but always has plenty of big snook. You just have to figure out how to get them to bite, if you can. We had the snook blowing our chum, and I believe we caught another snapper there, but our big snook decided to bang a bait that was out on a circle hook and sitting in a rod holder. The snook hit the bait with such violence that the Power Pro immediately parted, almost surely on something sharp on the bottom. By then, the tide was done there, and it was time to head in. It had been a pretty good day, and lots of fun with Danaca and Ken.
I had been watching the weather reports with great interest for several days, and they kept revising the wind forecasts upward as the days passed. By Friday night the forecast was for 25 knot winds. Since Ken and Danaca were going to be here until Tuesday, we decided to scrub Saturday in favor of Sunday, and hope the wind was lay.
But, when I got up Saturday morning it was obvious that it was I that would lay! I'd had some kind of virus come over me during the night, and I felt like I'd been run over by a semi truck, Mac! I still have the virus, whatever it is, and the wind forecast for Sunday wound up being even worse at 30! So, it wouldn't have been doable, anyway.
It's now Monday afternoon, and I still have the bug, and haven't been out of the house except to roll around with the pigs! Maybe I've got that Porkulous Virus that I've heard about!
With the season officially ended, my calendar looks very different than it has the past few months. I've already scrubbed Monday and Tuesday because of my flu and wind. Maybe I'll manage a trip or two before it's over.