AFW

By Jason
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Saturday, June 25, 2005

The alarm went off at 6am and I got the rest of the family up.  I made a a gallon of chum of the same recipe as last week.  Today it would be Karla, Amber, and myself.

We headed out a little later than last Saturday - 7:20am.  We proceeded down the channel and noticed quite a bit of 3 dimensional foam structures floating on the surface:

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7:29am

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7:35am

Then we headed straight for the area where we have  been successful at catching bait.  About 8:10am we anchored and began chumming.  Tide was outgoing at a slow pace.  The morning was cloudy and there was no sign of bait.  The sun peaked out through cracks in the cloud about a half hour later and the bait fish had arrived!  I jumped on the back and began casting.  It was not so easy the first hour as most casts yielded 0 - 3 bait fish!  But as time went on, the bait became more abundant and I was catching more and more per net.  Also, the outbound tide slowed to a stop and eventually reversed to a slow inbound.  I probably cast 40 times in the 3 hours we were there (yes, I did say 3 hours!).  We now had a bait well full of 49% shiners, 49% pinfish, and 2% other types.  It continues to be quite exciting to catch our own bait.

Today's preferred and most often used bait would be the pinfish.  It was also noticed today that pinfish are far more tolerant to oxygen deprivment than are shiners.

We decided that today will be a Pine Island Sound fishing day.  We headed to the south western York Island where it appeared a deep cut was based on my map.  However, I did not find the cut nor did we get any hits while fishing this area.  Next we went a little north to marker 22 (?) and fished the edge of the channel where the depth goes from 3 feet to 18+ feet in a very short distance.  Again, no bites.

We then headed to Chino Islands east side and fished the cut there then drifted into the flats and continued to get no action.  My popping cork did get some movement once but no further bites.  We watched boat after boat come and either anchor or troll the east side of Chino, but saw no catches whatsoever. During all this time, Amber was setting up a custom fishing sanctuary in the sink for the 2% that were not bait.

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12:25pm
"It was Saturday and we were looking for baitfish. And I helping . After we were done I found one baby croaker No wait two No three…oHH four but I did not caught him . Daddy said I could release them so I did . You could see one going. 
I remembered them in the sink."

I finally hooked up on something - a catfish:

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12:37pm

It began sprinkling a little.  Next we motored to a cut about 10 feet from the mangroves and fished.  We saw lots of jumping activity around, and what appeared to be a good sized redfish jump.  No bites whatsoever. 

Next stop: Redfish Pass.  The wind was calm and RP was remarkably calm.  We drifted inbound through the pass on a lazy inbound tide (1mph).  Once we cleared the inside of the pass, I caught this Crevalle Jack (? - or Pompano?-unsure).

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2:25pm

There were several bites here, but not hookups.  At one point I was reeling my pinfish in and found a fish of some sort chasing and biting on my bait, much like what happened during last weeks outting.  The fish never bit hard enough to puncture my bait, much less hook itself.  I thought it may have been a slender Spanish Mackerel.

We went through Redfish Pass again and this time the tide was swift inbound tide (2+mph) and I hooked up on a girthy 4-6 pound fish of some sort.  I was ready to bring it in with net in hand when the leader was severed and the fish escaped.  It had spots in a straight line down the side of it, and was silvery in color.  The tail did not look like that of a Spanish Mackerel so I am not sure what it was.

While going through Redfish Pass, it is important to note that if your hook contacts bottom, beware; you may be snagging on oysters as mine did several times today.  At one point, I am not sure if I snagged an oyster, or a large catch but my 15lb line snapped and I made time to remove this weak line and put on 25lb like our other poles.

After this second drift, we decided to head back through the pass, and south on the Gulf side of Capitva,   around towards Sanibel.  We stopped at Blind pass for a swim.  

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5:19pm
Another winner in here!  The shiner in this beach pond was eventually freed.

We made our way around to Knapp's Point and fished for a while.  Nothing. 

We headed to the area we were last week, between the lighthouse and Fort Myers Beach.  The tide was outbound at this time.  I hooked up on a ladyfish which once again was an exciting catch as it surfaced and jumped out of the water several times:

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7:38pm

After a while we motored to near the lighthouse and the pier at Sanibel then drifted back out with the tide at a swift 2.4 mph.  I caught what Amber thought was the SAME lady fish as earlier!

A while later just before sunset I hooked up on this nice shark:

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8:19pm - Blacktip Shark approximately 18-24 inches.

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8:22pm

Amber really wanted to catch as shark but did not get the chance.  She did  hook a catfish.  We fished a while longer and eventually headed back and were on land by about 10:30pm.  I was thoroughly exhausted and almost didn't clean up the boat, but I did.  I let countless pinfish go - at least 50.  

The weather was remarkable today.  And although it was steamy hot from lack of wind, we ran into zero thunderstorms or rain (only a light sprinkle early on), especially after several days of heavy rains.

We continue to realize that one must have patience of steel to endure the long days of fishing with the minimal action we are getting.  I continue to read reports of people making great catches but for some reason, even with live native bait, we have not yet been able to tap into the world class fishing that this area is known for. 

• Water temperature (Fahrenheit): 85-86

• Wind: calm all day

• Precipitation:  minimal

• Distance Traveled (mi): 64
  Running low on our fuel budget for the month.  With these fuel prices, I'm going to have to start paddling everywhere soon.

• Hours out: 15

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