It's Wednesday, the 26th of June 2002 at 7:30 in the morning.
The forecast called for partly sunny skies with thunderstorms likely later in the day. The tide
was High at 10:30am. The winds were out of the SE 5-10mph for the early part of the day.
My guests for the day were Anthony, Pete, Rick, John, Peter, and Dino of Sarasota. Anthony informed me when he first contacted me that he wanted to do some mangrove Tarpon fishing and maybe a little snook fishing too. Anthony has a very large family and he originally wanted 3
boats for the days charter. In the end we only needed two. I went to the Causeway the day before and caught a boat load of Threads but when I checked the well later on that night they had all died. We have been getting a ton of rain here and the river is nearly black. I could not even see
to the bottom of my well the water was so black. Anthony and the Clan arrived about 35 minutes late but no big deal. I informed Anthony we would be headed to the Causeway to get some bait because they were not living in the river and that Tarpon fishing will probaly be out of the question due to the high amounts of fresh water in the canals.
We arrived at the Causeway at 9:15. The tide was and incoming nearly slack tide. We saw Threads all over away from the bridge but we still struggled to catch them. Cory's boat managed to get about 50 threadfin in one cast and my boat continued to be empty for the next 40 casts. We then left and went to the B span of the Causeway I told Cory they were there and he made one cast and caught about 200. We dumped them all in my boat and transferred a few over to Cory's. The BackCountry I have has some of the best wells made and many times I have kept over 400 alive in my boat at one time.
Now that we are set in the bait department it is time to do a little bridge Tarpon fishing. We fished the bridge for abot 15 minutes and then I started to notice this kind of fishing is not for the guys. We left the Bridge and went to the Harbour. I knew the tides weren't
conducive for fishing that place but I decided to give it a shot anyhow. We fished it for about 35 minutes and Pete, Anthony, and Rick were all broken off a couple of times. Cory's boat managed 3 or 4 breakoff's. Cory suggested we go up river and fish a spot he has been doing well. Cory's
boat got there first and we followed up behind him. Pete and Anthony were on the front of the boat. Pete's bait started going crazy jumpin out of the water running from something. The next thing I know Anthony's rod is bent double with a nice fat snook jumping out of the water. The
snook made a mad dash for the rocks and Anthony looked as if he were going to be in trouble. Anthony was able to turn him while I directed the boat away from the structure. Finally we landed it and the snook went a healty 9lbs. Anthony did a reel nice job landing that fish, especially
since he only had 40lb test leader.
Next we left the rocks after 15 minutes of fishing to follow Cory into some Mangrove creeks. When we arrived Cory was still fishing there. Which usually means the bite is on. We fished down the bank behind Cory. Anthony boated a small snook as well as Rick. Pete lost one and then didn't get back to fishing for awhile because his phone kept ringing. Rick lost a large fish next to a tree where I told him there would be one. He was a big one but Rick is not used to keeping fish out of cover and he just let him pull him right into the mangroves and bust him off. Anthony jumped right into Rick's spot. When he tossed his bait into the bank. Slam!!! Fish ON!! He had a snook on. The fish started burning drag off of the Fin-Nor Mega Lite into the Mangroves. I pulled the boat away from Mangroves and that allowed Anthony the space to get the snook away
from the cover. After a good two to three minutes of fighting the fish he finally managed to get it to the boat. Boy was I surprised, his fish was huge. I was kind of jealous because I have caught several fish out of that area but never a 14lber. Anthony had one of those big ear to ear
smiles. Things like that is what makes being a guide worth it. Within 5 minutes I think Anthony had told 10 people about the fish he caught. While we were pulling in all those snook, I look over at Cory's boat and Dino had a nice snook on and when he got it all the way to the boat the hook pulled. Altogether Dino managed to get 2 or 3 nice fish on and out of cover just to loose them for no apparent reason at boatside.
Unfortunately during all of the excitement I look over at Cory's boat and his cockpit was full of water. He was so close to sinking. We thought he Eagle was a goner. We unloaded everyone onto my boat and I hoped onto Cory's boat to see if his bilge was broken or what. I found his bilge and it was running but it couldn't pump any water out due to high amounts of sawdust caught in the bilge filter. I assume the last person who worked on his boat had done some work and didn't clean up after himself. Once I managed to get the bilge going we let the boat sit while there was just Cory and I in it. While my boat was full of people Rick managed to get a nice 6lb snook to the boat. He was a nice fish and I wish I could have gotten a better picture but everthing was pretty hectic at the time.
Eventually we left the bank to fish a marina basin I usually do well in. The tide was non existent so we decided to leave and fish the canal where Blair caught his Tarpon. The fish were not in there though. I only saw one roll. The rain started to come down and we ran from it to another Tarpon spot where I had seen alot of fish two days before. The rain was not willing to cooperate so we took it in.
To conclude the day started off tough but got alot better in the middle and for the most part we were able to stay away from the bad rain storms. Anthony and the gang turned out to be a great bunch of guys that really enjoy fishing. I hope to see them again soon. 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!!!!
