~ STORY BEHIND THE DAY ~ EPISODE FOUR “PULLING PINFISH TRAPS”

~ February 20, 2021 ~ Hawks Cay Resort ~ Duck Key, FL

Captain Anthony Vargas - So the fishing has been a little slow lately and I got a call from Nick the producer of Guides and Tides and he wanted to get out and shoot something for an episode. The wind was blowing the past week so fishing had been slow. I had a trip coming up and had mentioned to Nick I needed to go out and pull my Pinfish traps. Without hesitation he said “sweet that would be cool to show people how you catch your bait”… So he met me at the Marina at Hawks Cay and we took a ride out to pull my traps. Pinfish are a smaller bait that I use a lot in the backcountry to catch Snook, Redfish and Tarpon. I also use them a lot in the Spring when we start fishing for the Tarpon at the bridges. If you aren’t familiar with the Pinfish or how to catch them, we uses small fish traps and put a block of chum or sometimes even fish carcasses in them to attract the small baitfish. I typically place my traps in small sand holes if there is a grassy area or shallow flat and if I find an area surrounded by a lot of sand or hard bottom I tend to put them on the small grass patches in those areas. We ended up pulling the three traps that I had out, I use three traps that way if one of them is a bust I have a better chance at catching some bait in the other two traps I have out. On this day two of the three traps I had out produced a good amount of bait. We loaded the traps in the boat put the bait in the live well and went back to the dock. When we got to the dock I started unloading the bait from the well and into my bait cage. It is crucial to get the bait into the cage as soon as possible so you don’t stress them out. When the bait is in the cage it can last me up to a week or more if fed and taken care of properly. Make sure to check out our episode on “Pulling Pinfish Traps in the Florida Keys” to learn some more about how I catch my bait.