After launching at Don’s Bait and Tackle, we followed a playful otter for a short distance as we wended our way down the crystalline river toward the Gulf of Mexico. Largemouth bass, gar, mullet and bluegills skittered beneath our boat as we eased along. Later, Katie, 11, got a special treat as a couple of porpoises raced beside us and darted beneath our boat.

While motoring through a slow-speed manatee zone, I wondered how the river got its unusual name. According to our skipper, in the native vernacular Chassahowitzka means “River of Pumpkins,” which is strange because neither he, nor anyone he’s talked to, has ever seen a pumpkin growing along its shores. Hope, whose great-great grandfather was the first settler in Hernando County, thinks that name may be a misinterpretation and could have meant “River of Grapes.” There has been an abundance of wild grapes along the river banks throughout the years, he explained.

The Chassahowitzka is a bountiful river in many regards. Ten springs (three main springs) pump 40 million gallons of 72-degree water into the Chassahowitzka daily. The river flows southwest through wild sections of both Citrus and Hernando counties. The fishing, like the scenery, can be spectacular.

When I travel to the Gulf coast to fish the Homosassa River, I usually haul my own 17-foot flats boat. However, when fishing the Chassahowitzka, a few miles south of Homosassa, I prefer to charter Hope. The Chassahowtitzka is much shallower and trickier, with rock and oyster formations that can damage a boat or outboard.

Our plan on this summer day was to wait for the incoming tide to fish for reds on rocky points inside the river. In the meantime, at low tide, we would start off fishing for spotted sea-trout on outside grassflats in 2 to 5 feet of water near Chassahowitzka Point.

While Bob and I cast for seatrout with popping corks and silver curly-tail jigs, Hope rigged up a cork and live shrimp for Katie to drag along behind the boat as we drifted. We caught a potpourri of fish, including seatrout, ladyfish, gafftopsail catfish and sharks. Trout fishing wasn’t so hot that morning, but the action kept us occupied until the tide turned.

At the first redfish spot, we anchored and baited up with live shrimp, threading the hook through the tail and leaving the point of the hook embedded in the belly two thirds of the way toward the head. That way, the hook is not as likely to hang up on a rock. When a redfish takes the bait, a short, firm hook set with the wrist will free the point and stick it into the fish’s tough mouth.

Hanging up on rocks is not a big deal as long as a piece of shrimp remains on the hook. Several times it happened to me and I waited a minute or so until a mangrove snapper came around and freed my hook. Above the hook, we use small sliding weights, depending on the strength of the tide flow—the stronger the current, the heavier the weight. However, smaller is better.

We cast to the outer edge of the rocky points along the weedlines. Bob was the first to hook up and turned the redfish over to Katie, who had a good fight until, like reds sometimes do, it managed to shake the hook. Before long, Bob hooked another fish and again gave the rod to Katie. Strike two! Right at boatside, the biggest fish of the day flopped over and swam off. Katie reeled in the line, which was not broken, but while closely examining it, we discovered that the knot was still tied; apparently, the line had slipped through a gap in the eye of the hook. No fault of Katie’s.

The third bite was the charm. With a little coaching from Hope, Katie finessed her redfish to the boat, putting enough pressure on it to keep it out of the outboard prop. She was all smiles.

“Can I cast the next one out for you?” she asked. I had just threaded another shrimp onto the hook. I handed the rod to her and she made a perfect cast right back to the same spot that yielded our first red. Then, just as she was handing my rod back to me so that she could return to her own tackle, another redfish snatched up the bait and took off toward Homosassa. Katie was engaged in back-to-back battles with redfish and soon put a second one into the boat.

It was one of those hot summer days when the reds are more scattered than during the fall and winter, so we kept moving from rocky point to rocky point, locating at least one redfish per site. We all hooked and landed plenty of redfish, keeping our limit of one each, between 18 and 27 inches, and releasing the rest. Bob even caught a big sheepshead and a gar to round out the catch. Katie got lots of action fighting redfish, trout, ladyfish, sharks, mangrove snapper, catfish and even a stingray.

Once again, the Chassahowitzka had come through. I have fished the river and that section of the Gulf in pleasant fall and spring weather, during freezing winter conditions and even in the hot summer and I have yet to come home without a mess of fish or without experiencing great action.

This last trip was on a balmy day—the kind of weather my brother Bill would have enjoyed. For me it was a bittersweet reunion with a river I love to fish, and a reminder that I need to get back there more often.

FS