AFW

By Jason
CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones

Sunday, May 29, 2005 Fishing Report - Memorial Day Weekend

Today was to be THE planned fishing day of the Memorial Day Weekend.  (click on the pics for enlargement).

I was up at 5:30am checking on things and fueling the boat.  About 6:30am I went to find a couple dozen shrimp but to my surprise, no shrimp had been delivered yet to the bait shop.  Bummer!  Got everyone up, and left land about 7:15am with some frozen & smelly calamari and old shrimp.

The water was absolutely smooth leaving at this hour.  The wind couldn't be calmer.  We headed to the Punta Rassa ramp dock, docked, and picked up 2 dozen shrimp at Shack Baits.  Had to wait 20 minutes or so, got the first of the day's bait delivery, and got exactly 2 dozen.

Next stop was the Sanibel Causeway, bay side.  Saw a couple of flats fishers out there searching for bait.  Keeping some distance I powered down and began drifting.  A nice gentleman offered for us to anchor in his chum slick, as he was finished.  So we took him up on that offer.  THANKS to whoever you are with the navy blue bottom flats boat with 115 Yamaha.   So we are sitting there throwing over the "special chum" I brought with and my gosh not 5 minutes later are we seeing hundreds of Shiners darting back and fourth eating the chum!!  So I get my cast net ready, and toss it the best I can.  Over and over and over we bring in 50-100 bait fish (98% Shiners,  2% Pinfish)!  WOW!  This is the first time we ever caught bait this way!  The last time (and only time) we ever caught our own bait was last summer when we were swimming on Fort Myers Beach and a huge school of thousands of shiners drifted into us.

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.
Boatload of bait!

So we headed up towards southern Pine Island Sound.  On the way, about 40% of the shiners died in the bait well.  While underway, our bait pump was unable to intake fresh seawater (transom intake).  This must have been the reason, although I'm not sure.   We did some fishing in a pothole that we discovered last week.  No luck.  We drifted a pass, and Karla caught this that we are told is a Black Seabass (Thanks Kim!):

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.

We went back and drifted the mangroves.  Ended up sort of drifting into the mangroves and hung there for a half hour or so.  Although we spotted several small groups of fish swimming by, none of them would take a bite of our shiner or shrimp bait.  ???  We thought we'd have some more fun with chumming for bait so we threw some out and watched a few 4 to 6 inch fish of some sort eat it, and a big Sheepshead, it appeared, passed by.

We spotted some Manta Rays:

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.

Next we drifted the flats in South PIS.  I got one bite early on:

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.
Caught my single Spotted Sea Trout for the weekend!

Beyond that we had no luck although once again like last week, we observed fish jumping all around us, but out too far to cast to.

Next we headed to the north end of Chino Island.  On the way there, someone's wires crossed:

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.
Must be the salt water.

We had zero luck fishing and so we thought we'd stir up a little action so we began chumming and attracted some bait fish once again.  Karla took a few practice swings with the cast net for the first time.  She casted well for a first timer:

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.

Next we headed to Redfish Pass.  On the way out the water became bluish and gradually became crystal clear.  The boater traffic at the pass was as expected: Medium to heavy.   We fished the pass starting on the Gulf side drifting in with the tide flow.  We had very little luck there.  I hooked up a small something or other (anyone know what this is?):

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.

Then an amazing thing was observed.  Amber spotted it first:

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.

This dolphin had shown itself to us 4 or 5 times, going under the boat and playfully surfacing.  Karla threw 3 shiners at the dolphin, and he obligingly ate them up.

Shortly after that, about a quarter mile south of Redfish Pass in PIS through the clear water we saw several fish checking out the shiners on both Karla & Carlos's lines.  However, no bite; Not much interest.  So I tried with a shrimp and BOOM, I caught the picky fish:

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.
Spanish Mackeral

We then headed back towards Chino.  Carlos hooked a 2.5 foot shark using a dead shiner, however the hook was stripped off the leader so he was not able to land it.  

Then we headed down through the pass north of York Island, then south around St. James City to Picnic Island for a swim.

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.
Karla made a big catch on Picnic Island!

Then we headed back to call it a day.

CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones.

• Water temperature (farenheit): 84-86

• Wind: mild

• Seas: minimum chop

• Distance Traveled (mi): 50.4

• Hooks used: black circle hooks

Remaining live Shiners & Pin Fish were freed, at the request of the little one.  We used no Pins today because "they are too cute to use as bait" she tells me.    We were back on land at 8:15pm.  That makes 13 hours on the water today!  We are burnt to a crisp.

As I sit here writing this report the morning of Memorial Day, the wife is wanting to go out fishing again ....

Previous Report                    Next Report 

Read our Notice About Pictures On This Site.

Website designed by

God Bless You.