The redfishing is definitely heating up, but the very poor morning tides, and intense afternoon heat made them a bit unpredictable. All in all, we did pretty good.

First up this week were Mike McMahon, of St. Leonard, Maryland, and his brother Pete, who lives in Orlando. Mike is 6 ft. 9 in., and Pete is the small guy at 6 ft. 5 in. tall. These are the biggest boys ever to step foot on the BarHopp'R, I believe. They certainly both dwarfed my 6 ft. 2 in., but hey, I had 'em beat in circumference! Mike had been out with Jess Messmer and Ozzie Lessinger in years past, and had great trips with both. Mike kind of confessed that he wanted to see if I could live up to my website. Man, talk about pressure!

The weather was in a reversed pattern of winds from the west, which is very unusual for summer, here. The only way we can get that pattern is to have a tropical storm in the vacinity, or a big winter type front push far enough south to move the Bermuda high that usually controls our summer weather. The result is that we have morning storms, instead of the usual big afternoon thunderboomers that rumble in from the east.

Bait seemed to have relocated itself from the previous week, and the spots that had been producing good and plenty pinfish and shiners weren't working this morning. I decided to check one more spot, that usually has great bait this time of year, but which had quit producing weeks ago, for some reason. Sure enough, there was the biggest whitebait there that I've seen in two months, anywhere. We were set.

I headed to the first hole for the morning. Before we could even get things organized and give it a chance, we had showers coming in off the gulf right at us. I never trust the summer weather not to have plenty of electricity in it, no matter where it's coming from, and elected to pick up and run away from it. Besides, it was too early for us all to get soaking wet. The rain kind of hung around and didn't seem to move much, so I decided to fish another area that often gives up great redfish. Even so, we still got wet twice.

I began chumming with shiners and pinfish, and had to move the boat a short ways and start over a couple of times, but the fish finally turned on. For the rest of the morning, Mike and Pete hit redfish after redfish, and we never moved again. Mike and Pete were fun guys, and with all the action going on, we had a blast. We even had one rod spooled by a big red in a matter of seconds as it sat unattended in one of the bow rod holders. We were all busy taking fish off, and taking pictures, when it happened. That's just one reason I carry spare spools and line. Well, by the time we were done, Mike and Pete had caught the 3 inevitable stingrays and tangled with exactly 37 big reds. They had to get into the groove of light line fishing and long casts, and after breakoffs, pulled hooks, etc., they landed 25 of those reds. I think I passed the test.

What a difference a day can make. Tuesday we might as well have been fishing on one of the dry canals of Mars. The wind was around to the northwest most of the morning, and we once again had an absolutely flat tide, but after Monday, I felt confident I could get something going. The pressure was on for this trip, too, as my customer was Steve Ratcliff and his sixteen year old son, Steven, from Plant City, who had bid on, and won a trip I donated to the Moffitt Cancer Center through my good friend Tom Ross. I was sure Tom had probably told Steve about all the great trips we'd had, and Steve said Tom had bid on it himself. Well, the fish didn't care about any of that, and refused to eat, no matter what I did. All we had to show for our redfish efforts were a stingray and a catfish.

Desperate to put some fish into the boat I turned our attentions to snook. It was now very late in the day for anything to eat. Although we only got three snook, we certainly saved the life of one of them. He had an old rusty hook still in his mouth, although no longer in the flesh, and a long piece of algae covered leader that ran back to his tail and was tied tightly around it. The fish had been wearing the leader long enough for the flesh of it's tail to be open and growing up around the leader, kind of like a tree does when a rope is left tied around it. We freed young Mr. Snook from his shackles and chains and let him go. That and lunch at the Waterfront were the highlights of the day. I wonder if Tom will ask me to donate again next year?

Wednesday, things were pretty much back to normal with the redfish for Mark Anderson and his friend Phil, and Phil's son John, of Ravena, New York. I did one thing very different, though. I decided to take my chances with the weather and the heat and fish the afternoon tide. We met at ten o'clock. I had been sitting at the ramp for an hour watching the approaching weather and listening to it boom. I wondered if I had made the right call. Once Mark and the gang showed up, we hung around the dock for a while waiting to see what the weather was going to do. It just seemed to be hanging right along the coast. We finally decided to try to run as far as the Waterfront Restaurant, which was almost to where we would catch bait. We could hide there and have an early lunch if the weather didn't cooperate. And, of course, it didn't. We were getting rained on before we even got there, and it appeared the weather was moving onshore. We headed to the Waterfront. There we ran into Skip Dunn, who Mark had been out with a couple of years ago when I was booked. Skip told us the weather was really bad just a mile or two up the Sound. We had that early lunch and watched the weather channel until around noon, when I finally figured it was safe to chance fishing.

Thank God one of our Captains gave me a big scoop of bait at the dock that morning. I apologize for not knowing his last name, but his name is Jon, and I believe he runs a yellow Maverick. His well was running over, and he said a lot of it would die if he didn't thin it out. Well, he saved us at least an hour after the storms, and that was a good break. I wasn't exactly sure how much bait we had, but it appeared that we had enough to fish with, and it turned out that we did.

Once at our first stop it didn't take too long to get things going. We didn't have the wild bite of Monday, but it was sure a far cry from the locked jaws of Tuesday. We had a lot of laughs, too, as the guys teased each other over their angling antics. When it was over, the Anderson gang had caught a stingray, a catfish, and tangled with 17 big redfish to 12 pounds. They got 7 of them into the boat. We fished until the tide was done, and called it a day.

Thursday the weather was settled down for Randy Routier and his fine sons Brandon and Tory, of Edinburgh, Indiana. We followed the same plan as the day before with Mark, and started our day at ten o'clock. Although it was harder to get, there was still plenty of bait at Chino, and we were fishing before 11:30.

After an adjustment or two we were finally on fish; a steady bite, if not a wild one. Randy and seventeen year old Brandon got into the groove fairly quickly, but young Tory, age 12, had a harder time getting the knack of it. At one point, while Tory was trying to get a nice red hooked, and knowing he would lose it if he didn't really stick it a couple of times, I grabbed the rod and hauled back on it to show him how we wanted him to strike the fish. In all the excitement of the moment, I smacked him in the face with the flat of my forearm. Thank God he wasn't hurt, but I think it sure surprised him a moment. We all had a good laugh over it after Tory got the fish landed, and we were both sure he wasn't hurt.

By the time the tide was finished the Routiers had caught a blacktip shark, two stingrays, a catfish, and had tangled with 18 redfish to 9 pounds, landing 6 of them. We'd had a good time. Brandon had the hottest rod, and had fun telling his dad, "It's in the boat!" We finished with a great Waterfront lunch.

Friday, it was fishing 101 for Art Lewis, of Lakeland, who recently bought a place on Pine Island. Art was eager to learn the basics of fishing Pine Island Sound, and getting around in the Sound. I told Art was would certainly be a slow day of catching if we fished, what with a long, lazy morning tide, and the high late in the day. His primary interest was in learning, not catching, and he decided to go. The lesson started, of course, with catching bait, which is one of the most important aspects of putting fish in the boat. From there I spent about half the day showing Art spots near home where he could fish at different times of year, and more importantly, what things to look for in deciding where to fish; things like potholes, cuts, current flow, oyster bars, and the ring of fire.

The second part of the trip was devoted to introducing Art to catching redfish and snook on the flats, something he'd never done. All of his previous redfishing had been in the bushes. Fishing open water is much easier than fishing the trees in my opinion, and I've had far more big days on the flats than I ever did in the bushes. Well, Art got his first flats redfish, which was also his biggest redfish, ever. But, he only got two. He also lost two snook. We had seen a slow day of catching during the short time we fished, as I predicted, but Art was happy and felt he had learned a great deal. I heard from him last night, and he said he'd probably be ready for Fishing 102 by fall. I'm looking forward to that. Fall fishing can be just dynamic.

So, that's how it went. Except for one real stinker of a day Tuesday, it wasn't a bad week; lots of good folks and good times. We ease back into a much better tide pattern as next week progresses, so I'm looking for good things to be happening in the next fishing report.

Note: Those of you who have trips booked in the future, or who may want to book, should note my new phone numbers. Home/office is 239-628-3522, and the new cell phone number is 239-633-5851.