Man, is this a slow summer. I can see it in the restaurants, motels, stores, and on the streets. I did manage to get in two trips.
The first trip was on Tuesday, when I did a two boat trip with my good friend Capt. Rey Rodriguez. Rey had one of his good customers, a family of six, and needed a second boat to accommodate everyone. I drew Becky and her two daughters for the day.
We were off to catch bait, but we were getting a late start. Rey had told me to be ready to go at 6:30, but I had been at the ramp since 6:00. Rey didn't show until 7:00! By the time we got everything organized, it was 7:15 before we pulled away from the docks.
We headed for Picnic Island, knowing bait had been drying up for the past week and getting small and hard to find. We were also late. Bait is best at first light. Rey and I split up and worked different areas of the flat. After moving and chumming, and moving and chumming I had maybe a couple dozen bait, most of which were very small.
We moved on up to the bar at marker 32, thinking there would surely be plenty of bait there. And, there was bait flicking and spraying everywhere along the edge of the bar. But, most of it was so small it either swam right through the net, or gilled in the net. I threw the net and threw it, and probably didn't come up with more than a dozen more baits. Finally, we decided it was time to go fishing. It was getting late in the morning. Most of the bait I had was nice bait. I just didn't have much of it. Rey had twice as much, but most of it was small. He shared a scoop with me to give us a little extra.
Rey had been on a hot ladyfish and trout bite the day before, and was heading back there. We followed. Once we got to the area there was no sign of anything happening. My girls decided they rather fish for something they could keep and eat, which was great with me. We headed south to a spot where I'd been catching snook, lots of snapper, and redfish.
For the first hour or so after arriving we had a pretty good bite. The girls caught half a dozen small snook, several nice mangrove snappers, a nice flounder, and a redfish. And, then. It was over. We moved to a trout hole about a mile away, but there was nothing doing there. What was doing was heat. We had lost the light breeze we'd had most of the morning, and now we were cooking. The two girls weren't doing well with the heat. When I asked if they would rather go to another fishing hole, or go to the Waterfront Restaurant for cold drinks, a great lunch and air conditioning, it was a quick, unanimous decision. We called the boys and told them where we were headed. They were headed to Redfish Pass to see if they could dig a redfish from there.
After a great lunch and cool-down, we headed back to the ramp. Rey and the boys pulled in shortly after we did, while I was cleaning fish. They had struck out at the pass, but had had a great time catching ladyfish, small trout, and some mackerel. Everyone was happy.
Wednesday, I had my second trip with Dan Brindley, a great young man I first fished with back in May. Dan was back in town from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, making final arrangements for his wedding to Amanda Myerson, and booked a trip while I was offering the summer discount.
We had an outgoing tide all morning long. The high tide was just before 7 AM. I wanted to get bait quickly and get to a favorite spot of mine on the big diurnal tides of summer. The big thorn in my plan could be getting bait. We left the dock at 6 AM, and I hoped that being out there very early would deliver the bait that had been so hard the day before. But, not only was there no big bait, there was no bait! My plan was not going well.
We headed north, and as I approached York Island I saw pelicans and turns working the edge of the flat. I watched for a moment and finally saw what I wanted to see: pelicans diving from on high. That's means bigger bait down deep. We stopped and got into position and got out the chum bucket. By the time we had thrown tow bits of chum into the water, it came alive with bait flipping on top. I figured it was threadfins that were passing through, but decided to make a throw of the net to find out. Dan and I were both jubilant to see the net was overflowing with shiners and the occasional pinfish. Man, it was beautiful bait. We actually had enough on the one throw, but being as we guides are such bait hogs, I threw again. After getting another big load safely into the well and doing a quick cleanup, Dan and I were off to catch some snook.
Along the way, I talked up the spot, which is a dangerous thing to do. The big bites come on the big incoming tides. We would be there for the falling tide, and would have a window of opportunity that might go two hours if we were lucky. And, we were.
I was concerned when the first two bats of chum I tossed to the hole went seemingly unnoticed. But, I knew those darned fish were there, and we put bait in the water. It wasn't long before we had the first snook on, and although it wasn't the hot bite I would expect on an incoming tide, it was a bite, and the fish were really nice. Our snook were running from 26 to 30 inches, and Dan missed as many as he caught, I think. He had a couple of real line stripping bruisers on that pulled the hook. It was good snook fishing, and Dan was having a great time.
But, as I knew it would, the bite came to an end as the water receded from the flat. It was time to move on. We headed to the spot that I had fished the day before with Becky and the girls. The water was still pretty high, as the tide was about an hour behind where we'd left. The fish weren't biting. We caught a couple of snapper, and moved on.
Dan had to be back at the dock no later than 11:00 AM, which meant we didn't have a whole lot of fishing time left. I asked him if he wanted to get another case of arm burn from catching jacks like he'd caught in May. He was excited at the idea, and we were off.
Once at our destination I began chumming, and it wasn't long before we had fish boiling on our live baits. I could tell by the boils we had snook, jacks, and snapper eating them. The first bait in the water produced a snook. Small, but a snook. We had great action at that spot until we were forced by father time to leave. Dan caught another dozen or so snook, a couple more snapper, and a jack. We missed a lot of hits, as well. It had been a great day of fishing for Dan, and I was thankful for that.
The tides are much improved next week, but I unfortunately, don't have a trip on the books. Those that do should be looking at some good fishing. I was the only truck at the ramp Wednesday when Dan and I fished. And, we only saw about three boats all morning long. That's slow!
