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More Fishing and Boating

• A not-so-lovely weekend for a regatta
• Seaworthy: Starting the season off right
• Seaworthy: Start the season right

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The boat ride thing is really a flip side issue. Most often, the lament of those who pay to play is that “we went to one or two spots —the fishing was fair at best and we stayed there the whole time.”

That may be a legitimate complaint or then again, it may not be... those one or two chosen spots may have been the crème de la crème locations for fishing the area that day. Moving to more spots may have been a waste of the customer’s time. Sometimes the fish are just off their feed.

But, no matter what, when you’re not catching fish it’s absolutely no fun. Period.

Now, how about that flip side? You know when your fishing trip looks like an elongated boat ride with little exercise spots to throw a few baits along the way.

This past week, two fishing trips, on sequential mornings, set the stage for playing out that “boat ride” notion.

Day One

Nice morning with a nice clear sky and just enough of a breeze to keep the bugs at bay in the backwater mangroves. Couple that with nice clear water and a good outgoing tide —what more could a fisherperson ask for?

The guests for the day were a nice couple from the Northeast who are regular customers and love to fish and capture the rapture of the pristine backwater on digital cameras. Sometimes the latter even becomes primary but not too often. Fishing is the name of their game.

That day, the fishing was like somebody wrote the script. We fished the mangrove points starting deep in the backwaters and worked our way out. On every point, the casts of shrimp up under the mangrove limbs brought ferocious strikes by sassy snapper or equally aggressive redfish and smaller snook.

It was fishing like it’s supposed to be —active, fun and super easy going. No stress. No anxiety. Just good fishing.

Our couple chose to catch and release and thus we had but little idea of how many of what we caught. It was just non-stop and fun for four solid hours.

Day two

It’s another backwater trip. What do you think was the first plan of action that was considered?

The weather, tide and water clarity were a virtual carbon copy and to top it off we had released all the fish on those spots the day before... so they would still be there.

Right? We would soon find out.

The guests for the second day were three early snowbird arrivals that were chomping at the bit to get into fishing action which had now vacated them at home. These guys were self-proclaimed fishermen extraordinaire and, as the day’s experiences would play out, were more auditors than anglers.

Now, you never tell a current customer, “you should have been here yesterday,” so when I recited the day’s game plan for them it was sans yesterday’s bonanza. For our threesome, we were attacking our potential catch at spots never utilized before.

Our first spot was a nice backwater mangrove point with water cascading under some downed brush. It was THE killer spot yesterday... I could hardly wait until these guys experienced the non-stop action.

The casts were deft and right in the catch zone. We would have action any second now. There was nothing. I checked the position of the boat and repositioned with the stern anchor and threw a handful of shrimp bits right up under the mangroves. Another set of casts with fresh shrimp. Again there was nothing. Not even a bump... Oh, boy!

Next thought was they must have moved to a down stream spot. “OK guys, pick ‘em up. We’re moving.” They were anxious for action and were ready to move on in a heartbeat.

Second spot. Casts are right on the money. Again, the agonizing wait. There was nothing, nada, zero. Not even a bump.

We’d been there less than ten minutes and again we gave the word we were movin’ on. The threesome exchanged furtive glances.

Now we were on the third spot and set up again. Without going through the gory details, it was the same. We stayed about five minutes this time and signal another move.

The threesome became agitated. We had yet to catch a fish on spots were we slayed them the day before. But we moved on believing in the premise that the fish were feeding somewhere, like they did yesterday, with the same conditions. Feeding is not the issue; the “somewhere” is.

We were now getting ready to move to our sixth spot and one of our threesome could hold it in no longer. “Captain, is this a boat ride adventure or what? We’ve been out here well over an hour and don’t even have a strike let alone a fish. What’s going on?”

Explanations were met with subtle smirks of skepticism. But still we made our move down stream again. As the saying goes “the fish gotta be somewhere”.

We set up again on a spot close to the Marco River where, surprisingly, there were signs of significant bait schools on the bottom third of a drop-off. The target was to work the drop just a few yards off the mangrove edges into a tide that had slowed just a tad.

I didn’t know what to expect. That is, until two of the three people had bent rods with significant fish on before the bait got to the bottom. We had the beginning of super snapper action with a few black drum and a couple of redfish thrown in.

We never left that honey hole until our time ran out. The cooler had a collection of dinner size fish that would be dinner fare that evening. The threesome were happy but a bit sheepish due to their skepticism and “boat ride” lament.

“Sorry , we were doubting Thomases, Captain,” they said.

“I understand your anxiety. But we kept moving till we found them hanging by that bait school. The easing tide also helped a bit. The lesson learned today is that if you want action you never stop trying and moving around is a big part of that strategy in the backwaters,” was my reply.

They all nodded.

•••

Species in the spotlight

Name: Bluefish

In season: Year round

Florida Regulations: Minimum size 12” fork length. Bag limit 10 per day.

Habitat: Usually inshore early spring and late summer. On Gulf side usually 3 lb. or less. Travel in large schools. Cannibalistic i.e. all members of school are same size. Have teeth and will bite. “Robust” table fare.

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Capt. Bill Walsh owns an established Marco Island charter fishing business and holds a current U.S. Coast Guard license. Send comments or questions to dawnpatrolcharters@compuserve.com.