Luyen’s Reel-Time FLog

After two straight years of shortened jaunts to Sanibel, Florida, I arrived on February 10^th with heightened fishing expectations, and two specific goals.  The first was to get back out on the water with Steve Bailey, my erstwhile annual Pine Island Sound guide.  The second was to make sure my two children caught some fish.

The weather had been warm for most of the month, though a recent cold front had pushed through. Steve’s season was just starting, and his report was that the redfish had lockjaw, though there were trout in abundance.  I had two half days scheduled with Steve.  Unfortunately, as is so often the case this time of year along the Gulf Coast, Mother Nature had other plans.  A powerful storm moved across the Southern United States, spending two days stalled directly over Sanibel, Fort Meyers, and Naples.  As a result, both my Monday and Wednesday outings were wash outs.  Nonetheless, the kids and I headed out to the beach with a bucket of shrimp in between downpours.  I  had caught some whiting the first day (after getting skunked in Ding Darling fishing for those crafty culvert snook), and hoped the kids might do the same.  Both kids were troopers, fishing through the first wave of showers that greeted us soon after we got to the water.  Alaina finally packed it in, drenched through.  Beili refused to leave, and I finally gave him my cap to help keep the rain out of his face.  I finally had to drag him in, fishless and soaked to the bone.

So much for goals one and two, thus far.

 The weather following the storm was beautiful.  The clouds disappeared, and high pressure brought bright sun and warm temperatures. I fished from a canoe with Rache in Tarpon Bay on Thursday; the water was still stirred up and murky.  But bouncing shrimp along the grass flats proved irresistible to the resident trout and catfish, which seemed starved after the storm.  I even caught a redfish working a shrimp like a DOA across the bay’s western cut. 

I went out with Steve for the first time in two years on Friday; however, whether it was due to the tumult of the recent storm or the soft neap tides, we couldn’t get a fish to eat.  We saw reds and trout along the Pine Island Sound mangroves, and we spooked a number of fish on the open flats, but saw no tailers, and had few follows.

Earlier in the week, I picked up a copy of Norm Zeigler’s book Snook on a Fly from the Bait Box, where he  apparently works Mondays and Tuesdays.  Apparently, Norm likes to fish the beaches west of Rabbit Road for snook.  According to Bruce, who runs the Sanibel Sea School (where we dropped the kids off for a day of marine exploration), the good stretch begins right around where Steve’s house is, ironically enough.  June, apparently is the prime month for beach snook fishing, though I just got a call from my in-laws, who said that they’re killing ‘em right now, due to the recent spate of warm weather.

Saturday, I took the kids, Rache, and her dad out again in Tarpon Bay.  This time, armed with shrimp and the confidence that I could catch them, I played caddie while the four of them fished the grass flats and drop-offs.  Beili enjoyed steering the pontoon boat and plucking the fins off the shrimp as much as he did reeling in a catfish.  Alaina hauled in a cat too, and I handed her the rod after hooking a nice trout in the cut on a retrieved shrimp.  Everyone caught fish.  Mission accomplished!