I was still on vacation for the first part of the week, so I ran only three trips for the week. For reasons I don't claim to understand, the snook fishing was really off in the Sound. There were plenty of mackerel, trout, and jack crevalle, and some redfish, but we were trying to target snook.
I received some good news this week. My website won its second award; the Starting Point Hot Site award. It is awarded based on the level of voting done by visitors to a site. Barhoppr.com was featured on www.stpt.com (Starting Point) Sports Page August 23rd. I want to thank all of you who may have taken the time to vote for my site.
My first trip was with Ted Thomas, of Gig Harbor, Washington, along with his dad Ted, and his eleven year-old son Ted. It was a lot of fun with three guys named Ted in the boat. Bait took a little longer than usual, and I believe we got to the Stickbeach for the tail end of an early bite. We only caught 4 snook there. But, there were so many mackerel in the waters, that if you were slow to pick your bait up out of the water to cast it again, it would be attacked by a big mackerel. They attacked out baits until we left, cutting off at least half of the rigs. You could have a lot of fun with the macks if you went out there with long-shank hooks and/or wire leaders, but that's not stuff you snook fish with! Teds also caught 3 jacks, and maybe half a dozen trout while trying to get a bait into a snook's mouth.
Later we went inside to the flats in search of redfish and snook. My Ted trio managed to catch a few more snook up to 6 pounds, and 4 nice redfish up to 28 inches. It wasn't the usual intense bite that I'm used to, but the Thomas boys were a lot of fun, and we had a great day.
Next up was my friend Lew Joseph, of National Sales Associates, Inc., in Ft. Myers. I met Lew some time ago at the ramp, and see him on the water once in a while, but this was our first trip together. Lew has booked several trips through the rest of this year, and wants to learn how to fish our waters under different conditions. This was an instructional trip as much as anything.
The first lesson for Lew was about chum. Lew has been using the nasty old jack mackerel, sardine, wheat bread, anise oil, beach sand, etc., mixture of years gone by. I showed him how easy, neat, inexpensive, and effective Purina Tropical Fish Food is for chumming up shiners. We got plenty of beautiful bait.
Lew brought along his friends Denny and Boyd, of Ft. Myers. He really wanted me to put them on some hot snook action, but it was not to be. The snook wouldn't eat, no matter where we fished. I don't think we caught more than 3 or 4. Oh, there were still mackerel and jacks, and they caught a few of those, but we really wanted snook. It was no different inside on the flats. We turned our attention to redfish toward the end of the trip, and took home a limit of 4. I think Lew caught most of the fish that day, and I quickly realized that he is a very good angler.
I was apologetic over the slow snook fishing, but Lew, who is one hell of a nice guy, said he'd had a great time and learned a lot. That's what matters. I'm looking forward to our next trip. We've got a great tide, and I hope I can show Lew how the fishing can really be in the Sound.
The last trip of the week went to Mike Miller and his eleven year-old son, Noah, of Sarasota. Mike had overheard me talking to someone at a Sarasota car wash, and taken the number off my van. He later called me and booked a trip. I was in hopes that whatever was suppressing the bite would finally be over, but it was not to be. The bite outside was non-existent, and we didn't stay long. I was banking on the redfish finally showing up in big numbers on one of my favorite flats, but that didn't happen either. I chummed a whole baitwell full of shiners trying to call the reds in, but they just didn't want to play. We caught one red 20 inches long.
For the last hour or so we concentrated on snook inside. Noah missed a nice one. You could tell it was a big fish when it blew the shiner up on top of the water. It wasn't long before we had another big fish on. I jokingly told Noah I'd kill him if he lost this one! He didn't! After a great fight, Noah landed a beautiful 8.5 pound snook. He was so excited he said he was shaking all over. We finished off the day with only 7 snook, the redfish, and a jack. But, it had been a beautiful day. Mike had been unhappy with his casting abilities, but he was being much too hard on himself. We'd all had fun. Mike and Noah were great to spend the day with, and Noah was a fine young man.
I don't know if it's my imagination, or not, but it always seems to me
like kids who learn to fish at an early age with their dads have a
definite leg up on other kids.