This past week will go down as one of the worst ever for us in this area, at least. A combination of factors served to destroy our schedules and our fishing. First, we had red tide blown into the area by previous fronts. Floating dead fish, and fish laying on the bottom in the flats became a common sight. The repugnant odor of the red tide and rotting fish permeated our air. Second, back to back cold fronts with temps in the mid-30's quickly dropped our water temperature back down to near 60 degrees. Our fishing toughens up when the water is below 70. Third, we had a whole week of high winds with typical averages around 20 MPH, and gusting to 30 and above. And last, we had some pretty poor tides with very slow water movement for most of the week. I managed to fish two of five days, and they were two of the slowest, toughest days of fishing I've ever seen. They were with the same folks, my friends Roland and Shannon Hartich, of Germany. They were very patient and understanding of the situation, thank goodness.

We managed to get out Wednesday, with the winds down from the levels of earlier in the week, but only managed to catch 2 fish all day long; a red and a flounder. Shannon had proclaimed that her goal was to get her picture on the website by catching the fish of the week. Little did we realize at the time that any fish in this week may have earned her a picture. Thinking there would be others, we failed to take pictures of the first and only two fish.

On Friday, Roland, Shannon, and I fished again, looking for better things to happen with a slightly better tide, but it was not to be. For the first time in recent memory, we were not able to put a single fish in the boat. I urged Roland to give himself a good discount on the trips, but gentleman that he is, he refused. I wanted Shannon to realize her goal of seeing her picture on the website, even if sans fish, and took some pictures, one of which you see here.

Fishing hit an all time low, and there can be nowhere to go but up from here. We have better tides next week. If we can get some warm weather going for a week or so, and get the red tide blown out of here, I think we'll see the fishing begin to return to normal.

I have now posted the final thumbnailed pictures on the Talon Page of this website, for those interested in seeing how one of these jewels goes together.

If you want to be able to continue to fish Florida waters please follow this link, "Manatee Zones: How You Can Help" and please take the time to become involved, even if you don't live in Florida. Let the politicians know WHY you come to Florida on vacation!

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