Sarasota Seatrout
The wind stopped howling last Saturday long enough for my friend Ray and I to get out and do some flats fishing. Man, between the wind almost every day, cool temps, and a lot of ‘red tide’ this year, the fishing has been less than stellar here.
Oh sure, there have been some great days, but we’ve been frustrated more than I care to think.
We had a rising tide, and the temps were due to get up to the 80’s, so we hit Sarasota Bay about 730 AM. The wind was due to pick up around late morning, so we did not have a full day ahead, and our expectations were on the low side.
We headed right out to a favourite area (near Buttonwood harbour on Longboat Key, for those of you who know the Bay) and were a bit surprised to find about 10 boats in the area already. Guess everyone else was of the same mind ! We still managed to get some open water, because it’s a pretty big area.
Lo and behold, we got right into some very nice Seatrout, mostly in the keeper slot, which is 15-20”. We’re allowed to keep 5 in the slot, one over, per day. We almost never do, but it’s sort of our guide to how ‘nice’ the fish are. Under the slot, “dinks”. Over, “great fish”.
It seems this year we’ve been getting trout mostly 13-14 ¾”. We laugh about this, figuring the trout are so smart they stop growing when they get to 14 ¾” !
Using our usual Clouser Minnows, we had a blast catching a number of 15-20” fish, while it seemed guys around us using jigs or live bait were not doing that well at all. Often we’ve seen just the reverse, flies not doing as well as live bait. Today, though, was our turn it seemed. No idea why.
About 10 AM or so, I was retrieving my #6 Fuchsia over Sliver Clouser in about 2 ‘ of water just off a sand bar, and I had a very hard strike that I knew right away to be a trout with some weight. It kind of wakes you up when that happens unexpectedly, and your heart beats a bit faster, no matter how many you’ve caught over the years.
Turned out to be a beauty measuring 23” and about 4 lbs. You can just see the fly hanging out of the other side of it’s mouth.
Here’s the pic:
Then, about 5 minutes later Ray got another one almost as good, using an Orange over Brown Clouser.
We got a few more, but the wind did come up as forecast so we headed in, happy campers !
Headed back to Aurora this weekend, so this’ll likely be my last report from the Sunshine State until next fall.
Look out Brookies !
Cheers !
