It's Saturday, the 22nd of June 2002 at 5:30 in the afternoon.
The forecast called for cloudy skies with potential heavy downpours. We
had a ripping outgoing tide. Winds were out of the SE 5-20mph for the
late evening.
I hadn't planned on going out on Saturday but my friend Nelson
arrived at my doorstep with 2 other friends, Chad and Miguel. They were
planning on fishing the Sanibel pier once the rains cleared up. After
some deep thought I said " let's take the BackCountry and give it a
shot. The weather looked bad but we went anyway and luckily that was
the right decision because the rains and bad weather stayed
away.
We went to the Causway and came up empty for 30 minutes or so. We then
went to the Pier and Nelson threw the net until, well until, ah we
never caught anything. We decided to try the Causeway one more time and
on one cast we caught about 20lbs of threadfin. In one cast we filled
all three wells of the boat, which is always a good thing. We even had
to throw over some of the bait in order for them all to stay alive.
Next I zoomed over to the Harbor. I dropped the trolling motor
and nose hooked a fat threadfin. I tossed my bait into the alley next
to a boat that was parked in our favorite slip. BAM!!! My thread was
hammered and the fight was on. Sure enough I pulled and he pulled and
he took me right into the docks. However, he wasn't able to bust me
off. Nelson and the rest of the guys started laughing and telling me I
got whopped. I grabbed the spool and started pumping the fish out of
the hole and low and behold he came out. While pulling him out the fish
pulled the boat right up next to the boat parked in the slip. No one at
the front had the courtesy to pull me away from the structure so I
could land him. When I finally got him out and close to the top he
pulled the entire boat underneath the the boat parked in the slip. On
his last two drags he managed to but me off on my 80lb test braid. I
was very upset at the crew for not helping me land that fish. I began
to rig and Nelson tossed his threadfin up into the hole and Wack!!! the
fist fight is on and Nelson managed to win. Meanwhile Miguel had tossed
his bait into the same hole Nelson had and Slam!! fish number 2 on.
Miguel pumped and reeled and finally managed to bring the fish to the
boat. Nelson and Miguels fish were both landed at the same time.
Miguels fish went 9lbs and nelson's went 11.
About 5 minutes after Nelson and Miguel had boated thier fish, I
had a nice jolt from a snook and when I finally managed to land him he
went 11lbs. Nelson tossed in a few more baits as did the rest of us and
after 2 or 3 more break offs apiece Nelson got serious. He broke out
his 20 to 40lb class g-loomis on his 400 calcutta. He tossed his
threadfin down the alley between the boat and pilings and Thump!!!
Snook ON!! Nelson's drag was on lock down and the Gloomis was bent in
half. He pumped and reeled as fas and hard as he could and when it was
all said and done, this 18lb monster came out of the water. What a nice
fish. He gave Nelson everything he could handle and then gave him some
more, but Nelson managed to land him anyway.
Eventhough we had some great fish to the boat, we were not ready to go
at all. Miguel decided it was his turn to get one of those fat
linesiders. He tossed his bait up into the alley and before too long
POP!! Racing Mullet on. Miguel's fish looked like it was going to get
the best of him but he was able to turn him and get him heading our
way. After a minute or so of the fish thrashing on the water we were
able to get a boga grip on it. Miguels fish was a thick one that went a
solid 13 lbs.
To conclude what a day to get out. We ended up with 4 fish over 11 lbs
and 2 fish 13 plus pounds. There are not many days like that. If we
could only manage to get in one of those 20 plus pounders we would feel
like kings. If you are urning for some rod busting leader fraying
excitement then give Captain Chancey a call @ (239)540-7529
Until next time may you have line singing, leader fraying, and
drag screaming action!!!!
