Fishing
Wade Right In
The guy in the Aussie Outback topper ran along the beach, tossing out a topwater plug, ripping it a time or two, then screaming like a banshee when one of the huge fish nailed the offering amid the foaming overlap of an incoming wave.
Time and again he let out a wailing distress sound when another fish would hit, take his bait, burn line off his reel, then toss the artificial like so much nothing a hundred feet off shore. I know, because I was running right behind him, cussing up a storm when the same thing happened to me. Man, these fish were hard to hook, and when you did they ran away like a wild mustang at the end of a frayed rope.
“Here’s one!” Bill Aucoin shouted. I took my eye off my lure long enough to see his rod double up as a strong fish made away with his bait, heading off—let’s see…to Mexico or someplace south.
The action was constant. So was the scenery, as bikini-clad beauties strolled by, giving us a look that could only be interpreted as, “You all on some wacko pills or something?”
Kind of made me wonder where our priorities were, but only for a moment, until another scaly brute grabbed my chunk of hardware and plowed further offshore.
The evening sun, surrounded by a hundred different shades of awesome, had already sunk below the western horizon, creating another fabulous reason why so many people come to the coastal area of Florida to visit and, once they collect enough green stuff, live.
- EQUIPMENT CHECK
- Rods
- 7-ft. Berkley
- 7-ft. Shakespeare
Ugly Stik Lite - Reels
- Pflueger Infusion
- Abu Garcia 804 Cardinal
- Line
- 8-lb. test Berkley Fireline
- Lures
- Nemire Lures spoons
- MirrOlure crankbaits
- Heddon topwater
- YUM plastics
- Berkley PowerBait
As the chap in the Aussie hat, myself and Aucoin rounded the sandy point that separates Fort De Soto State Park and the shores of Shell Key just to the north, we were still on the chase for those quickly diminishing shadows in the shallow surf.
With night approaching, I pulled up. Aussie still had more wind in his sails. AuCoin was slowing. It was time to grab a breath and look around…for the first time since I’d gotten there.
The wide, brilliantly white sand of Ft. De Soto Park beach was now arrayed in magnificent pastel colors as light from the dimming skies played through the shadowy dunes. What a place. Here AuCoin and I were plodding across a world class beach (so judged by “Dr. Beach” as best in the country two years back) without my taking time to see what the place looked like. AuCoin knew, of course. He lives close by and has been here a hundred times. That might explain his uncanny ability to fish through the lovelies with the string dressing with nary a glance in their direction.
The call had come only a few days before.
“Man, you gotta get down here right now,” AuCoin said on his cell phone. An old friend I have known for many years, Bill pleaded his case, describing the battle raging between a super-size snook and Eric Bachnik of the L & S Company. Apparently, Bachnik had just waded into the surf, tossed out a MirrOlure Minnow and the snook had struck instantly. AuCoin described the see-saw battle between Bachnik and the trophy fish like a ring announcer at a heavyweight fight. I could almost visualize my friend running over and holding up Bachnik’s right hand after he wrestled the prize to the beach.
“These aren’t eating fish,” AuCoin announced, reporting how the angler loosed the hook, pointed the nose of the big fish into the surf and released it.
“Dang, he’s hooked another one,” my pal said excitedly over the phone, “on the next cast!”
I’d had all I could stand. “I’ll be there on the next flight,” I promised. “Tell him not to sore-mouth everything,” I said, hanging up the phone and placing a call to my travel agent. “Get me there as soon as possible,” were my instructions.
It took two days to grab a low-cost Allegiant Air flight from Huntington, West Virginia, to Orlando, pick up a car and follow AuCoin’s direction to the quaint old Florida community of Pass-a-Grille Beach. There I checked into Island’s End Resort, where, if I was lucky, I would get an hour or two of sleep during the next few days. If fishing was as good as my pal AuCoin claimed, I didn’t intend to do much relaxing.
Still, I couldn’t help but notice this beautiful old community is little changed from what Florida looked like before condo development invaded the state years ago. Pass-a-Grille is also the last beach area along the 30-miles of blue water beaches that run the peninsula south from Tarpon Springs before jumping an island and reaching Ft. De Soto State Park and the entrance to Tampa Bay.
The next morning daylight found us wading the hip-deep waters at Ft. De Soto Park. Tossing a quarter-ounce, gold-finished Nemire spoon, I worked the spoon across the top of submerged weeds and managed a couple of bites, but could hook neither fish. “Water’s worked up too much. Let’s move,“ AuCoin said, reeling in and heading for shore. On the way I passed an angler who was fishing a Berkley Gulp crab lure—an imitation of the real thing that lives in brine when it isn’t fishing. The angler had taken a dandy bluefish with the bait, as well as two five-pound redfish and a nice speckled trout.
Back in the truck, we whipped through light traffic to Redington Beach—the scene of the fishing battle that drew me here in the first place. As usual, Eric Bachnik, the chief operations officer for the L&S Bait Company, was holding a business meeting with a client (and a pretty good looking client at that). They were right near a pile of large boulders that had been dumped into three feet of water years ago to help arrest beach erosion. Bachnik wade fishes every day whether he has a client in town or not. He and his partner had already caught three or four big snook from the rocks and invited AuCoin and I to wade right in.
On my first cast with one of Bachnik’s MirrOlure lipless crankbaits, a huge fish took the lure and streaked away with what seemed like the power of a four-wheeler. What a terrific run this bruiser was making, and I was asking myself all kinds of questions: What kept the rod from breaking, how was the braided line able to withstand such force, and what about that fluorocarbon shock leader knot? Could it possibly survive this kind of test?
- Resources
- St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention & Visitors Bureau
- (877) 352-3224
- Island’s End Resort
- (727) 360-5023
- Inshore Boat Fishing/Wading Guides
- Capt. Rob Gorta (727) 647-7606
- Capt. Brent Gaskill (727) 343-1765
- Kayak Fishing Guide
- Jason Stock (727) 459-5899
These are questions most greenhorns to saltwater fishing ask themselves repeatedly. No freshwater fish that swims can compare with the pure surge of a 10-pound redfish. And a 30-inch snook…well, its swimming strength is incredible.
I would learn that during the warm-weather months (May through September) huge numbers of redfish, trout and snook invade the shallow bays, run the beaches and fill up canals in unbelievable numbers. And all live in water easily waded.
I figure someone in government must have been a wade fisherman when this entire area was developed. Everywhere you look there’s public access to beach or bay areas, even in the middle of residential developments. Piers, bridges, all kinds of launching ramps, parking areas…it’s all here.
“Florida is on sale during summer months,“ AuCoin explained, noting that lodging is cheap, restaurants are begging for customers, and as for the fishing, it’s simply the best shallow water stuff I’ve yet experienced.
There are so many places to fish and so many fish to catch along the beach, back in the bay and in a multitude of canals. I had to sample as much as three days would allow.
Captains Rob Gorta and Brent Gaskill, two of the top boat guides along the coast, took time away from their busy schedule to show me some of their secret fishing holes. Both concentrated on fishing near some islands that are designated as bird sanctuaries, where there’s less fishing pressure. Here, they said, the tide holds the key to success. When there’s enough water to get over the sand humps, some of the best redfish and snook fishing in the country takes place.
Indeed, while we were taking advantage of such a tide, the redfish were thick as cow dung in a feeder lot. I learned early on that topwater type lures such as Creek Chub’s Knucklehead and the Booyah Samurai Blade in gold finish catch these fish like crazy when you can place the lures close by. That’s not always an easy task, as redfish are always moving and always eating.
Two hours before I left for my flight back home to Kentucky, AuCoin showed me the best weatherproof and exciting fishing the area has to offer. We met Jason Stock at Sunset Park on the side of the intercoastal waterway, and with only a few minutes to spare, Stock and I pointed our specially made fishing kayaks into a narrow creek.
No more than a hundred yards into the creek arm we pulled up a long casting distance from the target spot. Stock explained that because the water is so shallow and clear, long casts are necessary to prevent spooking the jittery feeders.
On the first cast the guide tossed a 3/8-ounce leadhead dressed with a five-inch Berkley Jerk Shad to the edge of the bar and immediately started cranking.
“I got him,” Stock shouted as a redfish in the eight-pound class tore up the calm surface of the bay. The guide’s ultra-light Ugly Stik bent completely double. Still, the tiny rod, a Pflueger spinning reel and eight pound test Fireline whipped the powerful fish into submission.
Stock held his prize up for a photo just in time for us to paddle the kayaks back to the waiting car and away I went in a rush to the airport.
What a trip—wading, boating and kayaking—and big fish on every outing. Dudes, that’s what I call fishing!