It's Saturday the 2nd of February 2002 at 10:30p.m.. The forecast called for an incoming tide for most of the night. The weather was wonderful, temperature was in the mid 60's and the winds were calm.
This Night Blast trip consisted of my dad Dow Chancey, Nelson my partner in arms and my two brothers Hank and Josh. They love the Night Blast trips and since the fog and tides were so bad during the day we had to fish at night just to try to get something for the dinner table. We were able to catch plenty of big fat white bait in the sound. However, the Rule 500 gph pump used to keep the live well running air locked while docked at the house and nearly killed all of the 150 or so big white bait we had. All in all about 100 died and we were left with only 50 livies. Not long after the bait fiasco we headed out to some lights on the Ft. Meyers side of the river. We had scouted the area the night before with bass assassins and found several keeper sized snook and many 23 to 25 inchers. I was able to land one snook around 23 inches and a trout about the same size before we called it a night on Friday. On Saturday night we left the dock with a little more confidence. We had some very nice bait and some lights that we knew were holding keeper sized fish. The first 4 sets of lights did not produce any fish, but they were there because we could see them. Sometimes they just don't want to bite and no matter what you do they won't. However, the next set of lights was the trick. I boated a keeper of 28 inches and Nelson got one around 23 inches. We fished that particualar light for about 30 more minutes and then left for a new spot.
The second canal system we fished was on the Cape side. We fished the first couple of lights up the canal system without much luck. We then decided to skip the next several lights to fish some that we know always hold nice snook and big black drumming drum. The light was loaded with snook everywhere and everywhere we threw our baits they turned their noses up at them. That was until I threw one of those plump shinny fat white bait into the middle of the light. As I began to real my bait to the boat WHAM!! Fish On!! and after a minute and a half battle, a nice 6 and half pounder was landed. We fished this set of lights for another 15 minutes or so and Nelson caught another 23 incher and that was about it.
Off we went to a couple of other lights up the same canal with nothing to show for our efforts, until everything changed for the better. We saw a new light that is not usually on in this area and boy did it hold some huge Racing Mullet also called snook by some. There was this titan swimming around under the light eating glass minnows or something. Nelson tossed a fatty white bait and that Racing Mullet ate that sardine like I would a fillet mignon steak. Nelson was using what I would call a baby rig. He had 12lb mono and 30lb leader and guess what happened, yeah that's right he was broke off. But that didn't stop Nelson, he grabbed one of my rods and put on another fat white bait. The next thing I knew he was hooked up on a 32 or 33 incher and an intense battle that ended with me missing the landing on the first shot and then on the second when I picked up his leader and grabbed the fish, the leader broke and the fish flipped out of my hands. I was starting to feel bad, but then I realized it was my rod and nothing could have been done about it. We fished those lights and the ones where I got the keeper for the next 30 minutes with only a couple of smaller snook to show for it.
The last stop was the rest of the lights we passed up on the way in. We only managed one 22 incher and one break off at those lights. It was time to pack it in anyway, so I was not to disappointed. It was 2:30 in the morning and we wouldn't be home until at least 3. We put the fish on ice when we got home and hit the hay.
In conclusion, we had one heck of a time. The weather was wonderful and the fish cooperated for the most part. If we include the snook I let flip out of my hands that Nelson had on, then we ended up with 3 keepers and 6 or 7 shorts. I will take a night like that any day and a day like that any night. We had a blast "Night Blast" that is.
Until next time may you have line singing, leader fraying, and drag screaming action!!!!
