Here we go again! Hurricane Jeanne is bearing down on Sarasota as I write this report. I spent Saturday through Thursday of the past week visiting family in Delaware and was able to squeeze in a couple of days of fishing on the Chesapeake Bay on Tuesday and Wednesday. The plan was to fish on Monday also, but the wind was still up from the remnants of Hurricane Ivan.
       My brother, Kirk Grassett, my dad, Dave Grassett and I fished Eastern Bay on Tuesday. Eastern Bay is a side bay off the Chesapeake Bay that is sandwiched between Kent Island and Tilghman Island. We found numerous schools of small stripers breaking on the surface and had good action with Crease flies, crab colored Clousers and jigs.
       The following day Kirk and I fished Tangier Sound near Crisfield, MD with our friend Capt. Matt Tawes of Chesapeake Angling in his new 21' Parker. We caught and released more than 30 stripers in the 3-pound class on Clouser flies fished on fast sinking fly lines. These fish give an excellent fight on 7 or 8-weight fly tackle and remind me a lot of the snook that we catch around lighted docks and bridges in southwest Florida. The action started slow and got hot in the afternoon. We fished points, marsh banks and stump fields as Capt. Matt expertly put us on fish all afternoon. You can see some photos from this trip in the photo gallery of my web site, www.flyfishingflorida.net. If you are interested in a quality fly fishing experience on the Chesapeake Bay, Capt Matt can be reached at 410-968-3286 or www.chesapeakeangling.com.
       Rusty Chinnis, from Longboat Key, FL and I fished the Terra Ceia Bay area on Friday in preparation for the Tampa CCA Photo All-Release Challenge fishing tournament on Saturday. We had a good day catching and releasing numerous trout to 18", including 6 or 8 slot-size fish, on Clouser and glass minnow fly patterns fished on sink tip and intermediate fly lines. I also caught and released a legal-size gag grouper on a Clouser fly over hard bottom at the edge of a flat! If we could have repeated this on Saturday for the tournament, we would have made a good showing. 
       My wife, Karen, joined Rusty and I on Rusty's Hell's Bay flats skiff to fish the tournament on Saturday. We caught and released numerous short trout and Karen had a couple of trout on a DOA Deadly Combo that measured, but didn't win anything. I try to never say "you should've been here yesterday" but that's the way it was. Just like a couple of weeks earlier at the Islamorada-Sarasota Shootout, we once again had to leave early to return to Sarasota and prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Jeanne.
       I fished a couple of days during the week of Sept. 13 in Charlotte Harbor and Sarasota Bay and found conditions to be poor. I scouted the Peace River one day and found no tarpon in the area that normally hold lots of them at this time of the year. Flood conditions on the Peace and Myakka Rivers apparently pushed all of the baitfish further down the harbor and probably the tarpon went with the bait. Sarasota Bay had an extreme high tide the day that I fished it as Hurricane Ivan passed by. There were breaking ladyfish with trout and bluefish mixed in, but the shallow flats were dirty and next to impossible to find fish in due to the flood tide.
       Next week's tides are good as we head toward a full moon on Tuesday. I would expect fly fishing for snook at night to be one of the better options. Flats fishing will depend on the water quality after Hurricane Jeanne passes. Hopefully we will once again weather the storm.

Tight Lines,
Capt. Rick Grassett
Snook Fin-Addict Guide Service, Inc.
(941) 923-7799
E-mail snookfin@aol.com
www.flyfishingflorida.net  and www.snookfin-addict.com

 

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