After watching the weather forecasters dance all over what was going to happen on Monday, I contacted my old buddy Jim Turman to confirm moving our trip from Monday to Sunday. It was was going to blow Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, as well as storm on Monday. Sunday would bring south winds, and if I’m going to fish in a big wind, I want it to be south. At least then, most of the time the fish will eat well.

    I was very early, and watched a number of boats go out under the causeway straight into the already stiff south wind, and turn around and come back. It was nasty out there. I pondered what I would do as I waited on Jim, who was bringing his friend Ed for his very first fishing experience.

With everyone aboard, we headed out to the bridge to see just how bad it was—pretty nasty, but I knew I could get out a safe distance from the bridge, turn to the west and launch. Once inside the B span, it would be relatively calm. We made our way to Tarpon Bay flats, where we joined probably a dozen boats working on catching bait.

Jim had given me, as our primary mission, to put as much fish in the boat for eating, as possible. Right now, that means Speckled Trout, and hopefully a Redfish per angler to top things off. So, our first stop was a Trout spot that gave us the the wind at our backs and current in our face, for a proper presentation of our live baits.

At our first stop on the long edge, we caught a few Ladyfish and put two or three into the well for possible use as Redfish bait later. I moved us up about the length of a long cast and anchored. As if we’d crossed over some line, we were now in small Jacks. Even 10 to 12 inch Jacks are a blast, and pull like freight trains, as Ed soon found out. But, we were looking for Trout.

I moved us up again, and now we were getting cut off by Mackerel! Then there were more Jack and Ladyfish. I moved up one more time declaring that if we didn’t hit the Trout I was certain were there, we would move on. And, wah-lah. We started catching Trout. I quickly lost track of how many we had in the well, but I though it was six. We’d caught plenty of shorts, too. We decided to move on to another spot that usually has outsized Trout this time of year.

The water there was just blowing in, aided by the strong south wind. I had a hard time getting the boat situated right. Finally, I just used the trolling motor to hold position. That worked OK until Jim hooked a monster Jack Crevalle. What a battle! Jim said he wouldn’t want to do too much of that. Shortly afterward, I hooked into a monster that also turned out to be an even bigger Jack of nearly 9 pounds. I haven’t seen many big Jacks around at all in the last couple of years, and forgot how tough they are. Once we had him landed, I suggested we move on before we hooked into another one. Of course, the real reason was that we had established the big Trout weren’t there, and we wanted more fish for the cooler.

It was around ten o’clock, and I couldn’t believe how quickly the wind had driven the water way up. I told Jim it was time to go Redfish/Snook fishing. But, for the next hour or so we didn’t have the first Redfish or Snook bite. Ed managed to snag a Ballyhoo reeling in, and we put that straight out there for Redfish. But, Ed instead caught a beautiful five-pound Trout. Hmmm. We were doing pretty well at filling our food order. But, I couldn’t believe that we fished about five spots catching only that big Trout.

We made another move to an area I love to fish for Reds, but had not fished in a long time. It was fast approaching noon and the witching hour for the tide. We fished several spots in the area with not so much as a bump, but did have some bait scaled by Snook.
I made one more move to slightly deeper water. I again put out a
Ballyhoo, a Ladyfish steak, and a live shiner. At this point the wind was really building, and it was very difficult to fish. What happens is that the wind and the action of the water tend to pull all the lines toward straight down the wind, and tangle them up. And, we had some of that, for sure.

But, we hung in there and it wasn’t long before Ed
casually said, “I think I’ve got something!” Those words were
quickly followed by the sound of a happy Stella 3000 screaming in Redfish ecstasy. I could see the fish boiling and smacking its tail in the shallow water, and knew we had our first Redfish of the day. It was a beauty, and we measured it half-dozen times, holding it
different ways, to make sure it wasn’t over 27 inches. It was right there, and went into the well.

Not long after that, Jim had another Redfish on, both so far on the live shiners, and boated a beautiful keeper of 25 inches. Oh, if we could just get one more, so I could have some, too. Redfish is my favorite fish to catch, and eat, from our waters. After a short time, I witnessed a huge blow on top of the water, right where Jim’s shiner was. Holy cow. It looked like someone had dropped a concrete block in the water from a hundred feet up. But, it missed the bait. I quickly re-baited Jim’s rig, and he tossed it right back to the spot. One
thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three. Boom! Fish on, and it was the fish of the day. It gave Jim a workout, but ultimately he brought her to the boat and the Boga Grip. She was 9 pounds and just shy of 30 inches. She had to go back. But, Jim had gotten his final workout of the day, and great pictures. We decided it was time to leave on a high note, and try to get in before the wind kicked any more. It had been building all morning, and was well into the 20s.

It wasn’t a bad ride home at all. I stayed as close to the manatee buoys as possible, and stayed out of the worst of the rough stuff. Then I took the inside route from B span to A span, which kept us out of the rough stuff. The ride across the mouth of the river was a piece of cake.

We had lots of fish to clean. The boys let me keep a Redfish fillet, a Trout for me, and a Trout for my yard man. They still had a bag of fish that went about 8 pounds. It hadn’t been an easy day, but it was a fun a productive day with one of my favorite fishing
buddies. And, in typical fashion, Ed had done great, as he brought no bad habits from back home to the boat.

Capt. Butch Rickey knows backcountry and flats fishing
in the waters of Pine Island Sound around Sanibel Island,
Captiva Island, and Pine Island, and Sarasota Bay,
Longboat Key, Siesta Key, and Charlotte Harbor
www.barhoppr.com