The week began Monday with the great father-daughters trio of Harry Krukenberg, and his girls Aly and Katie. I've been fishing with them, as well as Harry's Dad, Herman, for several years, now. The girls, now 10 and 14, have grown a lot.
The fishing and the weather had been tough for a while, with early morning storms seemingly every day, and we'd had the full moon that very night. I knew we'd be fighting full bellies, as well as dodging storms. But, the weather was clean starting out, and I elected to head up to Chino Island for bait, instead of out to the Punta Rassa flats. It was a good call, as the bait was plentiful and larger than that at Punta rassa. It only took 3 or 4 throws to load the well.
Our first stop was the best one of the day. The water was just crawling, but Harry and the girls managed to catch half dozen or so snook, and one big trout. There were a number of snook misses and get-aways, as well. Once we were sure the action was over we moved on.
And, that's when things got tough. We spent the rest of the morning trying to catch redfish and running from weather. All we could get to eat at our redfish spots were catfish, and we did stay dry. With nothing wanting to eat, we decided we would, and headed to the Waterfront Restaurant for an early lunch.
After a great lunch and a nice break, we went back at it, and hit a couple more spots. The gang managed to catch a couple more snook, and missed another four or so before we called it a day. We gave our left over bait to a nearby angler, and called it a day. It had been a tough one, but we'd had a great time. Harry and the girls are always a delight to have in the boat.
My long-time friend and fishing buddy Dr. John Hitt was in town for the week, for two days of fishing and some R & R. We fished Tuesday, and had a very tough day. We left John's dock at 7:30 AM, and headed down the river to Chino Island for bait. The bait portion of the trip went great, and we the well of John's Coastal loaded in three throws of John's net. We were ready to take on the fish.
But, we immediately ran into problems at our first stop. We had noticed that John's bait pump seemed to be suffering from prostatis, or weak stream. It was pumping, but nothing like usual. As we settled in to our first spot, I noticed that some of the bait was dying, and we'd hardly gotten a bait wet! I thought that perhaps the filter system was plugged, and working through the small hole near the transom, managed to quickly pull and rinse all the snot grass from the filter surface. But, in the short time it took me to do that, our already shocked bait expired on us. I stirred and stirred it, and managed to get two or three dozen to come back to life, but we threw away a ton of bait!
We debated whether to go catch another load of bait, or not. We decided to see if we could get anything to eat what we had left. The answer at the first stop was "no". We managed one snapper!
OK. We decided to see if we could catch some trout with either our bait or jigs. John is the undisputed master of catching trout on white curly tail jigs, but couldn't get the trout to do more than bump his baits. I managed a handful of small trout on the live shiners, but nothing near keeping size. We decided to make a location change, and headed to the west side of the Sound.
We were greeted there by floating clumps of dying snot grass, as well as islands of turtle grass. There was so much crap floating in the water that it was nearly impossible to fish. The only shot at catching something would be to get a bite in the first few seconds before seaweed came down the line and choked up the bait. It was an impossible situation.
We headed back across the Sound, and settled in the McKeever Keys. I decided to fish a trough and flat that I hadn't fished in many years. There at least, the water was much cleaner. As we fished along the area John made some brilliant casts, two of which were rewarded. The first was with a keeper redfish to join the snapper we had in the well. The second was a snook, giving us the Slam with but four fish caught.
By that time we had burned most of the morning, and were ready to head in. We needed to fuel the boat along the way, and would hit one more spot close by. Based on the fishing we'd experienced, I gave John the option of opting out, knowing full well it would be the same thing again the next day. He decided it made sense. We hit that last spot after fueling the boat, and although we had some nice snook strikes and some blows on our chum, John only managed to connect with one snook, which got away.
It had been one of our tougher days, yet we brought home fish, and had managed the Slam, and John had put on a fishing clinic to catch two of those fish! It was a good time.
After Wednesday off it was time for my old buddy Mark "Sparky" Lucas, his seventeen year old son, Andrew, and Andrew's good friend Joe, of St. Anthony, Minnesota. Mark and the boys and I have been fishing together since they were small kids, and I have gotten to watch them grow from boys to fine young men. That's really cool. Over those years we've had some great days of fishing, and one stinker that Mark reminded me of. I was worried about another stinker on this day!
We headed back to Chino Island, where the bait had been great. It was great again, but I noticed that there were some small new hatch baits showing up, and have a hunch that's all we'll be able to catch, soon. We caught beautiful bait, but it took probably ten throws, instead of three or four. And, as we topped off the well the bait disappeared, too.
We had quite a spell of dead water to fish first thing in the morning. So, I elected to concentrate on catching some redfish early, as they don't seem to be quite as persnickety about strong tides as do our other fish.
We took up residence on one of my favorite flats on the east side, and went to work with live baits and cut ballyhoo. I knew the fish were there, because I had seen them. Now, all we had to do was get a few to eat. Mark struck first gold with a nice 28 inch red, which unfortunately was out of the slot. Then Andrew scored a 25 that went into the well. We missed one other, and caught numerous catfish on our ballyhoo. We never got a big bite going, and after the second fish in the well, things seemed to come to a stop.
From there we fished our way north. I thought I'd show Mark and the boys some new territory they'd not seen in the past. We fished quite a few spots with nothing more than scaled baits. We couldn't get a fish to eat! Finally, with the boys so hungry they could sit on a block of cheese and swallow a live mouse, we headed to the Waterfront Restaurant for lunch. That was just what the doctor ordered. And, after a good cool down, we were ready to go back out and take on the heat, again.
We hit two more spots, and finally found fish that were ready to eat. We had a pretty good bite, and in an hour and a half or so, the boys put together fifteen snook, and added another keeper redfish and an outsized flounder to the well. Quite frankly I was surprised. The heat was now getting to the boys, and it's the same heat that usually shuts down the fishing midday during the summer months. It was getting late; somewhere around 4 PM. Everyone was fried, but we had pulled out the day and turned it in to a pretty good one. We were ready for the ramp, and still had fish to clean. It had been a great day with my old friend Sparky and the boys.
We're moving into new moon tides next week. I will be away on a short vacation next week, but will be coming back to fish one day with another old friend, Dave Adair. Dave and I go way back, and as I told Sparky, I wouldn't let vacation get in the way of fishing with an old friend when I'm fifty miles up the road!