Friday found me with John and Ben netting bait south under the Sanibel causeway. I was trying to elude the red tide that has been killing a bunch of manatees to our north. I was able to find very nice bait in about 5 throws. We were earlier than the tide and started in a canal on Sanibel island where I usually can find some snook and jacks under some docks at this time of year. I did find the snook. A couple of bruisers were lurking under those docks and boats but they did not want to have anything to do with our baits. Water temps were 61 and they were not biting yet. We did catch about 10 jacks in that canal and that was a good warmup for the day. After that we went north to Gault island and fished the incoming tide for reds and to our surprise found some very respectful trout under the bushes. we spent the whole day pitching the trees and caught a limit of 12 trout , most of which were around 19 inches and 3 small snook , and! one 15″ redfish puppy.

Saturday , after talking to other captains, decided to go back to home base. Launched in Bokelli to the north. Found bait at one of my usual flats and had the well full in 3 throws. I had good friends Jim and Bill on board. They wanted some redfish for blackening that nite. But I threw them a curve ball and took them for grouper offshore for an hour while waiting for the tide to start moving in. Well we struck out on that idea, but heck , ya gotta try. Last year at this time we boated some impressive grouper early in the mornings. So back to the trees and on our first spot Bill lost a keeper snook, and Jim caught a snook about 14 inches. We then moved to another key , where the water was so clear I thought I was in the Keys .I could see reds and what I thought was snook moving ahead of me on the trolling motor. I staked out a couple of times working my way from hole to hole. They didnt seem to be interested. But after an hour of chumming Jim nailed a nice 26″ redfish which put up a great fight in the shallow water. Then Jim caught a seatrout that was a whopping 28 inches. This was a monster trout and fought very well in 8 inches of water. The tide was slowing and we decided to go find some more trout. We fished 3 flats and found a school of keepers and soon had 12 in the box for a nice dinner. On the way back in I took them to a cove where I had located some nice snook last year . We chummed most of what was left in the well out and had snook blasting baits all around the boat. Jim had a decent one on and it threw the hook on the first jump. Next Bill caught a short snook and with that we called it a day at 3 pm. A little later than I wanted but we were having too much fun to quite on time.

Sunday I had Doc Steve out and we pretty much did the same as the day before except Steve was a little more keyed up and missed the only two redfish that bit his line. I was able to put a two reds and a keeper snook in the box. Then we spent the rest of the morning fishing for trout and caught our 8 fish limit before heading in.

Once back at home I had to change out a ball valve on the boat as it was leaking and prevented me from using my center livewell all weekend. And my new GPS/Sonar unit would not read a water temp on the old transducer so that forced me to remove and replace the transducer. That took all of 2 hours to complete. Ouch. But now everything is running fine and I expect that with the bait on the flats and reds in the bushes we should be in for some great fishing in April and May. Next weekend I am gonna be up at Lake O for three days with a bass tourny on Sunday. I will keep ya all posted on my results from the tourny.

~ Capt Rebby

     Friday Well this weekend finds me in good spirits as I can wear my Pats hat for another 12 months with pride. Today I had Mike R. from Boston down to fish with me. Of course monday thru thursday it was beautiful, calm, and sunny, As soon as Mike arrived the front passes through. So we have 30 mph winds, 55 degrees in the morning , water temps at 61. Here I am thinking how cold it is and Mike is loving it. I almost forget that you can’t float a boat on 2 feet of ice. Anyway we fished the same places in the creek as I fished with Steve last weekend and we caught a bunch of sheepies and some small trout. Then I forced my way onto a flat to try for those gators and it didn’t work . I could not find the holes the water was so churned up from the wind. Next time it is calm I will need to bunch these holes into my gps so I can find them. Error on my experiment trip eh. So we ended the day without many trout , jus! t a dozen or so shorts and some decent sheepies. I did not need to fillet any as Mike wanted to catch and release fish. fine with me.

     Saturday Today was Jim L. who split his trip with Mike from Boston. The day was much calmer for Mike and we were able to go to some of my more favorable docks for sheepies. Once there we caught some very nice ones. Including Mikes 12 pounder. It was a monster sheepshead on 10 bl test. After that we went the pass for grouper only to find a red tide bloom in progress. Here we go again. Red tide can ruin the fishing in an area for months. I quickly left the red tide for another part of the sound. I went to two flats for trout and found that they did not want to play. We never had a hit. So I then took them to a back bay area that was sheltered. We anchored up near a deadfall. In the next hour the guys caught some more sheepies , 3 undersized reds, a small gag grouper, a flounder and some puffers. I think it was entertaining for mike who hasn’t seen some of these fish before. On my way out I saw a group of 10 really nice snook. But I could not get them to even budge on a bait. I think the 59 degree water temps have them shut down.

     Sunday This was supposed to be the best tide and best weather for me in a long time. And it was. I had Dave V, twin bother Brian V. and dad Art V. These guys were fun to have on board my boat as they were giving each other the rassa mataz all day. Once at the favorite dock , we caught nice sheepies up to 10lbs for an hour before the redtide rolled in. Knowing that the sheepies were biting I ran 12 miles south to redfish pass to elude the red tide only to find out that it was over there even worse. After 15 minutes of hacking and sore throats we left to search for trout. I took off across the sound to fish the flats. On our first drift I found them in 4 ft of water that was 61 degrees. They caught trout on every cast for an hour. But only caught 4 keepers. but it was fun anyway. Then the ladyfish showed up. We caught a bunch of these before calling it a day. Back at the dock I cleaned 12 sheepshead and four ! trout. Too bad about the red tide or it could have been a better day. But we all had fun and that’s what its all about .

~ Capt Rebby

Two trips logged this weekend. Our temps have dropped some and even though it is getting into the low 80′s late in the day our water temps have been in the high 60′s every morning.

Sat. I met with Bob and Steve at the ramp for thier scheduled monthly trip with me. We spent very little time looking for bait and settled for a livewell full of pinfish as I could not find any signs of shiners. With the water colder and the trout season closed we focased our atttention to bottom fishing for grouper. I spent a lot of time in nearshore waters around 30′ deep. We fished for about 4 hours and managed 2 shorts and 3 keepers. The gag groupers ranged from 22″ to 24″ , all were fat healthy fish. Very good eating fish. While we were out there we ran into a school of Macks busting bait on the surface. We managed to catch 3 nice 20″ macks on jigs after losing 3 or 4 jigs to the toothy guys. On the way back in I decided to try a few docks and see if the sheepshead were running yet. And to my surprise we caught 3 very respectable sheepies. The bite wasnt as fast as when they are here in full force like they should be by Febuary but at least we caught some. Then the tide was stopped at 2pm and we called it a day. Not bad for winter fishing , 3 groupers, 3 macks , and 3 sheepshead.

Sunday I fished with John P. and after getting bait we headed out for the grouper again. This time the first fish had us scrambling to pull up anchor and chase. After what seemed like an hour battle with the bruiser we finally got it to the boat. It was a spotted eagle ray of about 150lbs. For a ray , it put up a decent battle. It jumped twice clearing the water by 5 feet. and made fantastic runs spooling off hundreds of yards of line. But we got photo and let it go. By the way , this thing was about as big as a car hood!! After having his butt kicked by the ray, John managed to bring a 22″ gag grouper to the boat along with a short. So we headed back to the dock early to get more tide than the day before. Once there, we caught a few short sheepies and a black drum that was about 20″ long. The drum did put up a good fight and John did an excellent job of getting him away from the dock poles. We ended the day with some catch and release trout fishing as john loves to fish for trout. The trout are there and once Jan comes around I am sure we will get some decent fish in the box. So the day ended with 1 grouper, and one drum to be cleaned.

capt rebby

Hey everyone,
I am back! I have returned from the woods of Penn State with a freezer full of venison. I was able to harvest a nice 8 point buck and a doe with bow and arrow. This will go down as one of my most memorable hunts ever. Weather was mild, food was plentiful, caught up with old friends and made some new friends. Never did have time to go fall asleep by my favorite tree as the deer kept me busy most of the week. great time .

Friday , first cold front moved through our area. Water temps were 80+ degrees. It was too windy to fish outside so Bob,Steve and I decided to try and locate reds this day. Getting bait was not a problem , loaded up in 3 throws. We headed down to the south end of the sound and began working  mangrove banks where I had last seen reds back in Sept. We only were able to catch 4 catfish. We moved every 20 minutes from spot to spot trying flats , holes, and bushes as were fish our way northward. Each and every stop we caught catfish. They seemed to be everywhere we were at. Some were
very large too. Our only excitement came when a large fish nailed a ladyfish chunk while we tried to eat our lunch . Steve fought it for what seemed like 10 minutes. Our water here is very dirty due to the fresh water runoff from the storms so when we finally got her close we I.D. the fish as
a large stingray of about 40lbs. Nice fight anyways and a great job by Steve to keep her out of the bushes. Later in the afternoon we decided it was time to get some fillets and out onto the flats we went to harrass the trout. Our bait was on the large size so most of the trout caught were keepers . The boys landed 10 nice trout up to 20″. Rain was threatening so we headed in about 2pm.

Sat. trip was scheduled with Robert.  Robert has fished with me on numerous occasions and the last 3 times down to Florida he has seen some of our coolest weather. Today was calm and mild but it was also the day after the front and the fish were very tight lipped to say the least. We nailed bait fast at Ussepa Island and headed to the pass for snook . After about 8 drifts we both had a snook on and Roberts was a nice one but we both lost them. Snook have a habit of not holding the bait long when a cold front comes. Seeing it was nice out we went outside about 2 miles looking for birds and tuna. but we saw nothing much happening. We then went back inside to fish for reds. and after fishing a lot of spots we could only manage a 15″ red , small gag grouper, a small black sea bass and lots of kitty catfish. So off to fish for trout. After a couple of drifts we found a pot hole that they were in and then we couldn’t keep a bait in the water. Catching all those trout after going so long with out keeper fish was fun. At about 3:30 we headed in with 8 nice trout in the cooler.

capt rebby

Three trips this weekend , forecast was hot , humid, afternoon storms and big tides. My kind of weekend.

First up was Jim and his Grandson Ron. Ron is 11 and recently has moved to Cape Coral from up north. Getting bait was a chore. I went to 3 different flats and they all produced the 1″ shiners and some small pinfish. We had lots of this small bait so I decided to take Ron fishing for snappers and match the hatch so to speak. Our first stop was at a mangrove point where the current washes under the bushes at about 3 ft deep. I chummed lots of livies and dead shiners bringing the snapper alive with boiling water. Ron and Jim caught about 5 keepers and 5 shorts apiece with a couple over 12″ , which are nice snapper and good eating fish. Ron was surprised at how well these little fish pulled. And Jim found out how line shy they can get when the sun is high making these fish a worthy opponent. We then went to a few docks and finished off the 15 fish limit on snapper with some over 17″ ( maybe 4 pounder) , I should buy a scale one day.
We fished two different flats for trout and caught many many shorts and only 2 keepers. I will blame it on the small bait. sounds good for now. We did get two small ladies and I took them to 3 different sets of bushes to soak chunks while eating lunch. Wouldn’t ya know it. we caught bigger snapper. I have never seen a snapper eat a chunk of ladyfish that size before. before the day ended Ron got to tangle with a nice redfish that I est. at around 24″ , however it rocketed towards the undercut and broke him off in the leader roots of the mangrove trees before I could even shift into my coaching mode. I think they had fun and we were driven off the water by an approaching storm. ended with 15 snappers and 2 trout making a good couple of meals for them to take home.

Second up was Bob, Dave and Mike, all of whom fish with me once each month for a few years now. They know my boat very well and understand my style of fishing. Again we could only manage small bait . I was to take them out to mamas hole for some offshore adventure but I had no decent shiners to get the kingfish going. We went anyway using squid and cut baits until we caught some grunts on the bottom. I cut some grunts up and we chunked with them and put one down onto the wreck alive with the tail cut off. All we managed was a couple of undersized red groupers about 18″ long. I was not impressed but of course I didn’t have the good sized baits like I did on Memorial Day. So back inside to fish for snappers where we caught 12 nice snappers and 4 keeper trout to end off the day with a meal for the
boys.

Third day, Art, and twin sons Dave and Brian. With what just happened the last two days I did not fight it and loaded the boat with the small shiners and went for the snappers again. They caught some real nice ones up to 17″ and some small groupers too. Then out on the flats. Except I was stuck between oncoming storms. I had one to the north and one to the south that were going in different directions. The only sun was directly over us and the there were weeds under us so I stopped and fished where I hadn’t ever fished before and observed the weather while the boys were catching lots of trout. only problem was they were shorts mostly. About two miles away we granted by the weather gods a sight that I have only seen twice in my 10 years in Florida. A funnel cloud formed to our north about 2 miles always and eventually touched down in Charlotte harbor becoming a full fledged water spout (tornado). I was a little nervous as I could not determine the direction. The guys were taking photos and enjoying the sighting. After 15 minutes it just sucked up into the clouds and the sun came out and the heat turned up as the temps rose to 97 degrees. We fish flats the rest of the day where they caught 4 nice keeper trout in between the many shorts. I bet they caught a total of 50 fish but most were released. I really had fun with these three as they continued to jab each other with remarks and laughter all day. I have more fun when everyone else is kidding around like that on my boat.

All and all it wasn’t that bad a weekend. I am looking forward to this bait growing up enough to start some serious red fishing again. That should take about two weeks to happen.

~Capt Rebby.

Four day weekend, one customer and then fishing with family down from Conn.

Thursday, Doctor Steve, brother Scott, Niece Mandy and his Mother Di. Boat was a little crowded but we pulled it off. I was to meet them at 8:30am. I was at my usual bait spot at 6am as the sun was just lightening the sky, it was a little tough to see the baits but in two throws I filled one live well then lightening struck all around the boat as an storm approached. I hightailed it to the ramp and took refuge in the truck until they arrived. I tried the beach first in hopes of some snook action but the southwest onshore breeze made it too rough for Di to handle it. I then elected to go to the mangroves in search of snappers which usually come inshore this time of year. We tried it for a half an hour without much luck and soon we were driven off the spot by the hordes of mosquitoes that attach our legs. It was tough to fish the bushes with that many lines anyway so off to the grass flats were Steve’s mom put on a show for everyone catching the largest trout of 22″ and the most. They boated lots of trout and after a stop at Cabbage key for a drink or two we were at the ramp cleaning fish by 2pm. I cleaned 16 trout and two mangrove snappers and they invited me to the Lazy Flamingo for lunch were Steve had half of the fish blackened and the other half fried. It was a great meal.

Friday, my wife’s cousin and husband were down for a fishing weekend. I didn’t have anymore bookings due to a poor tide for this weekend and boy did it prove to be tough. Val, Tim, Pat and I were at my first bait spot at 6am no luck, and with this southwest wind we have been having it brings with it storms from the gulf. After dodging a storm and 4 different bait spots we managed 50 baits in the well. It was too rough to go outside and I didn’t want the girls to get eaten by bugs so we flats fished. I started south and worked my way north. Demere key point, and then Sangria la. both spots we caught a lot of nice keeper trout, some ladies and jacks. Oh, and Val had a a black tipped shark about 20″ long and some other unknown species almost spool her. it was a fun morning of catching fish. I tried the fish shacks for snapper and boy are they there. hundreds of the things. However they wouldn’t eat, mostly due to lack of tidal flow I am sure. We ended the day with 12 nice keeper trout and 3 snappers. I fried them up with some salads and we pigged out and lounged around the pool.

Sat. same thing , wind SW , Storms, no tide. no bait. I started at 6am and was still trying at 10:00am to get bait. Even went all the way from Jug Creek to McKievers key with out a bait. I did have some real small stuff but elected not to net them as they mess up the net. I should have, because when we did go fishing with the pinfish we had I found a nice hole in the bushes that held big snappers and the few one inch shiners I had were eaten quickly and we short hit a lot of those fish. We still had fun, and caught 4 – 14″ snappers and two sharks. I then brought them out to Captiva pass to try for some groupers. Tim had fun rockin’ and rollin’ in the swells as it reminded him of his home waters of long island sound. we did catch about 10 groupers up to 18″ but no keepers . Last spot was the flat south of mondongo key and Tim nailed a beautiful 26″ trout that must have weighted around 6 pounds. Fat fish. That ended our day and we were off the water at 3pm.

Sun. just Tim and I as the girls were going beaching. So I launched at St James city and went to the causeway to find bait. We were able to load the boat with large threadfins in 15ft of water. I then headed off shore to see if we could find some kings and big mama. Southwest wind had swells up to 6 feet and topped with caps. Tim was used to this stuff so I pressed on. The Pathfinder pounded a few times throwing the door under the console open and hitting me were no man needs to be hit. but other than that it performed great . But wouldn’t ya know it the only boat out there was spear fishing on the wreck I wanted to fish. Tim and I found other structure and made 6 attempts before we were able to get an anchor hold that positioned us over it. We immediately caught Red grouper , snappers, and blue runners from the bottom. The kings were not present. Maybe the water was too warm for them now or it was too rough , who knows. We did have a very large cobia , around 50lbs, come into our slick but he left without looking at our baits. I had hoped the spear fishermen would leave or run out of air but they stayed so I moved us 9 miles south to another wreck were we did not even have a hit. At 1 pm we called it quits as I needed too get the boat cleaned after 4 days of fishing and we were home by 3 pm lounging at the pool.

All and all it was a fun time. Tim is an serious turkey hunter and does a lot of lobstering. He has invited me up to turkey hunt in the spring. I will take him up on that offer as it is something I always wanted to try. Fishing , as always , isn’t as good when the tides are weak. and the disappearance of the large scaled sardines didn’t help matters. The showing of small bait means they have spawned and moved out. So for the next couple of weeks I will focus on Mangrove snappers with small bait and if anyone wants offshore we will need to hit that causeway for the larger bait.

~Capt Rebby

Well the local news report has indicated that the sound is full of red tide this week. I am very concerned that I will have trouble getting bait this weekend.

Fridays trip was with my local friend Bill. I had a cancellation and Bill took the opportunity to fill the gap for me. I tried for bait at 3 of my best spots without much luck. The tide was not moving and I was not sure if we were in the red tide or not. So I elected to do some top water fishing until it started to move around 9:30am. We were able to catch 8 nice keepers and lots of shorts on my favorite top water bait , chrome chug bugs. After this we tried again for bait and found plenty of it. it may have been the tides. I hope so. So off to the pass, the Macks were there although not as many as last weekend and after 1/2 hour of chumming we netted about 5 Macks and lots of undersized groupers. I then took him to a flat for reds where we fished for 2 hours changing locations about 4 times , only caught 2 jacks and some cats. So we ended the day with 8 trout and 5 Macks on the fillet board. Not as good as I would have liked but hey, I didn’t see any red tide. As a matter of fact the water was the clearest I have seen in months.

Saturday, Today was a much waited for trip for Robert, and his dad Robert ( which I will call Bob). Robert was with me in the winter when all we could fish for was Sheepshead in Ding Darling Preserve as the wind was howling that day. I knew the day was going to be fun when the two of them were jousting over who would catch more than the other. It is always fun to have a little competition going in the boat.

We started the day very early and were able to catch the tail end of the outgoing tide prior to it stopping. this was the ticket as we had two live wells full of bait. Off to the pass. Things started off very slowly. Bob caught the first two or three fish and lost about 4 hits. The Grouper were biting but the Macks were hitting short and biting baits in half. Then I ended up catching the first Mack. ( I hate for that to happen) however I was trying to prove to myself that they were indeed Macks and not small sharks dealing us all the missed hits. Robert did catch one Mack and lost a few more. He was able to catch up to his dad in numbers by yanking groupers off the bottom. We gave this spot far too much time to prove itself and after moving 3 times I was certain the Macks were not in full force there. It seems that the mackerel are not nearly as schooled up as they had been last year I wonder if the red tide has anything to do with it. I will most likely never know. I decided to fish for trout on the flats that were north of Captiva in order to be close to Boca Grande Pass when and if we got our limits as Robert wanted to give the Tarpons a try. Well after fishing 4 flats with corks and shiners we had 12 nice trout in the well. Robert was a natural at this and caught his first 3 fish on a “hole in one cast”. For those of you who may not have fished with me yet I make up names for most anything I find entertaining and when one casts a popping cork out and it hits the water and goes under in one motion that is claimed to be a hole in one. It usually happens at least once a trip but Robert was getting them more than usual.

Off to the Poons. Rigged with 6 oz breakaway jigs and 4″ shad tails and after some instructions on the drill for fishing tarpons Robert was ready to go. His dad decided , after seeing all the boats in the pass , to watch the show . Well the poons were rising all around us and Robert and his dad got an eye full of tarpon. After motoring and drifting for 1 1/2 hours without a hit or even seeing anyone else hooked up I figured that the poons were not playing today .

Next stop was the Crane , a construction crane that had been lost off a barge some years ago. I thought maybe there would be some nice snapper there but we were only able to catch a couple of small ones , and a juvenile Jewfish. The Jewfish was only a couple of pounds but it was very colorful and I am sure the photo will look nice. We were running low on bait so I went back to Ussepa and got a net full in one throw , Then back to Captiva pass to try a different tide for Macks. The tide was stronger than in the morning and my experience has been when the tide is fast enough to keep your bait on top you usually don’t get a good feeding spree from the Macks, and true to form that is what happened, we were able to get some groupers and a ladyfish. by this time it was 4pm a full day on the water and the heat was wearing on me. So back to the dock to clean the mess of fish we had. The day was very fun with Bob and Robert heckling each other as most father and sons do. I sure do hope they had as much fun as I did.

Next weekend is a businessman’s holiday for me, with my good friend John from Mass due in on Thursday to do battle for 4 days with the famous tarpon of Boca Grande and a rematch with Big Mamma , the jewfish who kicked his butt last month. Should be an interesting story as always with John on board.

~Capt Rebby