My old friend and fishing buddy Dr. John Hitt, of UCF, was first up on Thursday. With trolling motor batteries, and other items recently repaired, we thought we were all set for a day of snook and redfishing.
We left John's dock at 0600 hrs. and headed to Picnic Island. It was a beautiful morning, with a light breeze moving. We anchored at our destination and went to work, and it didn't take us very long to have plenty of bait in the well. It was a good mix of shiners from 4 to 6 inches, and pinfish of all sizes. We were ready to fish
I told John that snook had been hard to come by in the Sound, and that some were being caught in the river. But, there you have to put up with bogus manatee zones. I suggested we hit the beaches. I planned to move along slowly a cast away from the beach and flip shiners up in the trough until we tagged a fish. Once we'd done that, we would anchor and chum the area with live bait.
We settled on a spot after the long ride to the beach, and I put the trolling motor down to get things started. When I turned the handle nothing happened. I told John the motor wasn't running, and he said he needed to turn on the switch up under the bow. When he did so parts came of in his hand. We tried to get it to work, but the more we messed with it, the worse it got. We wound up with several pieces. We were without a trolling motor, and our plans were pretty much foiled. There aren't a lot of options out there without that trolling motor.
I tried to make it work by moving with the Yamaha and re-anchoring, but all we got were scaled baits and a small shark. After covering a pretty good stretch of beach with nothing to show for it, we headed back inside.
We had a pretty good easterly breeze going at that time, and we decided to see if we could get close to a redfish spot and then drift in quietly on the wind. Well, we got close, but not where we wanted to be. And once we did, there were islands of turtlegrass blown in all over the are by the breeze, and it was pretty much unfishable. We moved on.
At this point we realized we were probably best off drifting for trout. We could anchor once we found a fish or two. We worked several flats along the inside of Captiva, where good trout fishing is usually found. All we had for our efforts was a couple of jacks and a few trout including one keeper. We were already in the heat of the day, and the fish just didn't want to bite on live or artificials. We moved across the Sound to another flat known for trout action, and put one more keeper in the boat. We had some mackerel action that always results in cutoffs if you aren't fishing a wire leader or a long shank hook. And, we had schools of fish all over that flat that were working on top and sometimes jumping. But, whatever they were they wanted nothing to do with our baits.
By noon we were about broiled in our own juices, and called it a day. We had dinner, and had a good time even without the trolling motor or any snook or redfish.
Friday, I had my second trip with Rick Sergel, whom I'd fished with back in March. This time he had his brother Al Sergel along with him, in from KC. I'd already told Rick the fishing had been tough in the Sound, and was surprised he still wanted to go. I'd thought he might rather postpone to a later time when things were more normal and not so hot.
We got started at six o'clock, and headed straight to Picnic Island, again. Rick took over the chumming after a short lesson, and slowly we got the bait chummed in and loaded the well. It wasn't nearly as easy as it had been the day before, but we had our bait
I knew from having shared the boat with Rick before, that he would want to fish snook and redfish. That would be our area of concentration. We headed into Matlacha Pass for our first stop, in search of snook. I did quite a bit of chumming along a beautiful shoreline, and we got quite a few blowups on our chum, but only a couple of half-hearted hits on our baits. We finally moved on, in disbelief that there could be so much action on our chum, and none on a bait with a hook in it.
At that first stop I learned one thing. I already knew that Rick was a very skilled angler with lures from our previous trip. But, shiner fishing is different. There's very little weight to a shiner, and casting them any distance demands that you understand rod dynamics, and how to load a rod. Well, Rick and Al were quickly making great casts that most folks that are new to this brand of fishing, just can not make.
Given that, I decided it would be fun to go into Tarpon Bay and chase snook. Casting to the mangroves would not be a problem. But, again, after fishing two areas, we came up empty. We were having fun making great casts, though. But, time had gone by quickly, and we were approaching the worst heat of the day, when things would slow down. Slow down? We moved on, and turned our attention to redfish.
At our next stop, Al quickly scored a beautiful slot redfish, perfect for the table. Both he and Rick were thrilled with the fish. So was I. After a while with no action we were anchored on a beautiful flat and pitching free-lined shiners, shiners under popping corks, and sliced-N-diced pinfish. We'd gotten one take on the pinfish, but the red dropped it as he was coming tight.
But, we had seen two nice pods of redfish come right across our lines and settle down. The guys weren't quite sure what they were looking at, but they did see the pushes I was pointing to. They were subtle, with tell-tale shadows underneath. We were all shocked the fish hadn't eaten any of our offerings since they'd swam right by them.
It was looking like a no skunk, one redfish day as we prepared to leave the flat and head to lunch. It was hotter than blazes with the temp at 97, and the heat index at 107. Brutal. We were all overheated and hungry. I told the guys to each put on a fresh bait and keep it at the ready, in case we came across another school of reds while we were making a slow exit off the flat. I've had it happen many, many times over the years.
So, with baits ready we began our slow motor crawl off the flat. All of a sudden, there were redfish rising up everywhere, as if they'd been buried in the safety of the deep turtlegrass. "Cast!" I bellowed. "Cast! Cast! Cast!' Well, Al didn't waste any time, or ask where to cast. He just let one rip, and it was eaten as soon as it hit the water. Rick didn't fare as well, and the school was quickly gone. But, Al had his second nice redfish of the day.
We headed to the Waterfront Restaurant feeling good about the day, even though our haul was two redfish and a snapper. It had been a great day for me, as Al was a great guy, just as Rick is. They're two avid, mature anglers who are very skilled and know the ropes. They've done it all, and are great to share the boat with. Numbers weren't the important thing for Rick and Al. A good time was in the challenge and the hunt!