the BarHopp'R Fishing Report 6/30/08

My Monday trip was with Dr. Patrick Reidy, who is a local eye, ear, and throat physician. I fished with Patrick last year around this time, and really enjoyed being out with him.

We began our morning with a run to Chino Island, in hopes of finding lots of bait there. I'd caught great bait there on my last trip. This trip was different. There was plenty of small bait on the flats, and lots of trout busting it, but there were very few larger baits in the mix. The bonus bait turned out to be ballyhoo, which I keep any time I can catch it. The ballyhoo will show themselves on top, usually behind where you're throwing the chum. They are extremely spooky, and very quick. So, they're very hard to catch, but I've figured out a way to catch them by staying under the radar. What I do is throw the net very hard and with a lot of spin just a couple feet off the water. That way the net is over the ballyhoo before they have a chance to react. It's nothing like a regular throw of the castnet, but with practice can be very effective.

We worked hard for our bait, and when we were done we had just enough shiners, pinfish, and ballyhoo for a morning of fishing. Having ballyhoo in the well changed my game plan. We had a southeast breeze which would allow me to fish a mangrove shoreline I like to fish for reds on a south wind. And, although I've been on lots of reds in the last couple of months, getting them to eat has been tough. The ballyhoo gave me some confidence on the reds, because they just love them cut into small sticks of about two inches long.

Once we got to our spot, the first ballyhoo Slim Jim was eaten immediately. It was a rat red. Well, that didn't take long, and established the fish were there and catchable. And catch them Patrick did. He caught 11 reds before we moved on as the tide ran out of gas around 10:30.

We made a move and a change of quarry. We were looking for snook, now. But, at the first stop we could only muster one fish. We had not only seen the best part of the tide, but the best part of the day with the summer sun now well overhead. Fortunately, we did have some cloud cover and enough breeze to keep up from cooking in our own fluids. We moved on to see if we could find snook on the beaches.

Once at our spot Patrick was treated to something few ever see unless they've lived and fished here for many years. That treat was the sight of big schools of snook raiding huge schools of small bait fish. The fish seemingly go crazy and blast through the schools and out of the water with their mouths open like whales feeding on plankton. It's quite a cool thing to see, and I usually see it happen a couple of times each summer. I have rarely seen the same behavior on the flats, though.

Usually, when the snook are blasting bait like that they'll smack anything you throw in the water. But, that was not the case this day. The snook repeatedly raided the bait all around us, and we tossed our shiners and small pinfish right into the middle of them. But, we only managed to catch 5 snook. Patrick didn't mind, though, as he'd been treated to quite a show.

We headed home, and had a pretty long ride that could have ended in disaster as a large leopard ray jumped right off the bow out of nowhere. Thank God, the ray realized the error of his ways just as he was clearing the water, and miraculously managed to pull his jump and disappear under the boat. Had he not done that, he could have landed right in our faces. Whew!

I'd had a chance to talk with Patrick more than on our last trip, and I'll tell you something folks. His philosophy and attitude about how he cares for his patients is wonderful. It was evident in talking to him that his patients are people to be cared for, and not just dollars to be made. If you have a need of a physician with his specialty, do yourself a favor and become one of his patients. He's a genuinely great guy.

Capt. Butch Rickey
the BarHopp'R
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