This week will have to go down as one of the worst in my guiding career. Virtually nothing went right, not only for me, but for some of my friends.

Things quickly fell into the Murphy's Law pattern again Sunday evening. I met Charles Waddington at his shop to pick up BarHopp'R II. Charles had done a quick weekend repair to correct a separating in the deck components. I didn't get two miles down the road toward home when the port side wheel bearings on the trailer literally exploded. I heard an odd noise, and looked into the rearview mirror just in time to see bearing parts, seals, and stuff spewing onto the highway in a cloud of smoke. I was in the middle of nowhere, and wasn't about to leave the boat on the side of the road. It was too late to take it anywhere on a Sunday evening, so I crawled along slowly, holding up traffic, determined to get the rig home for the night. I had about 15 miles to go, but a hour later, I made it. The wheel was just about to fall off.

I knew this had to be God's way of telling me I was not going to fish Monday. My bug had kicked my butt over the weekend, and I spent nearly all of Saturday and Sunday in bed, but was determined to keep my date with John Hitt on Monday. A different decision had been made for me. Once home, I got on the phone to see if I could round up a guide for John. I didn't want him to have to miss a day of the four days he had scheduled to fish with me and Mark Bess. My first choice was again Capt. Kevin Holley. I was keeping my fingers crossed that he had been able to get his new motor straightened out over the weekend. Kevin told me that he had to be back at the shop first thing in the morning for a final adjustment, but that he could fish with John as soon as that was done. Thank God! I let John know, and everything was good.

Monday, after some to-do, Allstate Motor Club finally found someone who was willing to put the boat and trailer on top of their flatbed truck and get it to Boatmaster for repairs. As I saw the truck come down the street, I realized it was the same fella, Sam, who had rescued me on Friday and towed me lock, stock, and barrel to Franklin's Auto Repair. Sam had recognized my most unusual boat, and commented on my extraordinary run of bad luck. Fortunately, Ty at Boatmaster was able to get someone on my job and get me done by quitting time. They replace the port side hub and bearings, rebuild the right side, and replaced my failing tongue jack. Thanks to all the folks at Boatmaster for getting me in and out.

I got home with the boat, trailer, and van, finally ready to get me to the ramp and fish, expecting to find a message from my Tuesday charter, Bud Dunn. I had him scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday, and had John Hitt scheduled for Monday and Wednesday. Finding no message, I checked my records and found that no deposit had been received. I got that sick "I think I've screwed up" feeling in the pit of my stomach. I checked back through all of my emails and there it was, a short message sent long ago that Bud wouldn't be able to fish the October dates, and rescheduling for 2000. I had failed to take the dates off my schedule, and had even referred quite a few trips for those days. So, I wouldn't be fishing Tuesday and Thursday, and I had Friday scheduled off to drive to Jacksonville to a family reunion. The work week had gone to hell in a hand-basket, quickly.

There was more bad news when I called Kevin for a fishing report. He and John had gone all day without a single fish until Kevin made one last stop somewhere within sight of the ramp. They saved the trip there with a couple of keeper snook and a couple of redfish. Kevin is a good guide, and I knew that if he struggled, it would likely be more of the same all week long, on very similar tides.

I made my Tuesday project the installation of a new Standard submersible marine VHF radio. The pager/cellphone method of communicating on the water was not working reliably for Mark and me. Since a radio is not something I often use, I wanted to make the installation workable without putting too many holes in the fiberglass. It took a couple of long drives to West Marine to collect the parts I needed, but I finally had it out of the way, and easily removable.

Mark pulled in that evening after his first day with John Hitt, looking like he'd just lost his best friend. His fishing report was as disheartening as Kevin's had been, and sounded almost identical. They had not found any fish until the last stop of the day, where they managed a snook and a couple of reds. Mark had talked with others at the dock who hadn't even seen a fish all day. Mark is a great guide, and can usually figure out how to get something going on those tough days. Meanwhile, my friend Capt. Tom Stephens had fished Monday and Tuesday with my customer Dick Witherow, because I [thought] I was booked on Tuesday. Tom's reports sounded like he'd been listening in on the others. They struggled to put anything in the boat. That's tough fishing, folks.

So, here I was, finally at the ramp for what would be my only trip of the week with John and Martha Hitt. John is the president of University of Central Florida, and lives in Orlando. He frequently fishes the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon area around Titusville. I already knew from Kevin and Mark that John and Martha were every bit as nice as I had imagined from my email and phone conversations with John. I wanted desperately to produce a great trip for him, but left the dock knowing that there was a preponderance of evidence that said it would be different. I already knew what wasn't working from the reports from Kevin, Tom, Mark, and others. I decided to move further north in the Sound and fish areas that I usually don't have to go to because the fishing is so good south.

Mark was fishing, too, with David Crozier, one of his regulars, and had planned to go straight to an area that had been producing well for us last week. We now would be able to talk on our radios instead of cell phones. Bait was great, but we had a stiff easterly breeze once again. When the wind is east.......! The water in the north end of the Sound was Silver Springs clear. All that was missing were the performing mermaids.......and the fish. As I ran across the falling water, I didn't see the first redfish push, anywhere. I stopped at a series of holes next to a mangrove island that usually have plenty of snook in them, and redfish on the adjacent shallows. We had water low enough that there should have been redfish tails shinning in the morning sunlight. But, they weren't. The first hole produced nothing. I got a hit on a chum on the second hole. Encouraged, I offered several different looks, including a sliced and diced shiner. It was immediately eaten by a nice snook, which Martha did a fine job of bringing to the boat. It was right on the new 26 inch limit. Confident we would catch more, and not wanting to jeopardize my career with a fish right on the limit, John elected to set her free. After a couple of keeper founder the bite stopped. One more hole produced nothing, so we did a pothole launch to the next stop of the day, a hole which often has lots of both reds and snook to catch. We got one pop on the chum, and nothing but catfish. In fact, for the rest of the morning, we caught catfish everywhere we went! It didn't matter how we presented the shiners; tail-hooked up top, nose hooked, under a popping cork, or dead on the bottom, the catfish were eager participants.

I headed to a series of potholes in the Flamingo area that usually have redfish and trout in them on low water. After a couple of good pops, but no hookups, we were once again in the catfish mode. Geeze! Off again. John said he'd be happy with a few trout. So, I went to my very favorite low tide trout spot thinking trout would be a done deal. I guess we caught half a dozen, and broke off a big something. All but one were very small. We got one keeper trout and catfish, catfish, catfish!!

We decided it was time to head to the Waterfront for lunch. No, I don't own stock in the Waterfront. J.D. hasn't offered me any, yet. We had a wonderful lunch and had a chance to just sit and talk. John, who's a mountain of a man at about 6'4" and 320 lbs. wasn't even intimidated by the huge seafood platter the sat before him. I couldn't have possibly eaten all that food. John has a voice that you'd expect a man of his stature to have. He must scare the hell out of his young students when they visit his office. Martha was as sweet as she could be, and an elegant, poised, charming Texas girl who still looks great without here makeup, even in her early 60's. The Hitts took the morning in stride, and when I offered to extend the trip and make another attempt at finding some hungry redfish, were quick to agree.

The water was getting pretty high, and I decided to go with what works so well about 95% of the time. But, the fish just weren't about to play. A couple of normally very productive spots, lots of chum, and some patience yielded the same results. We finally tossed in the towel, accepting the reality of defeat. Back at the dock, I was quite surprised to see that one guide had lucked up on some fish that would eat, and had several nice snook and reds. John, after first saying he was impressed with the catch, later observed that he must have used dynamite!!

Back at the house I discovered that Mark and the Croziers had had the same kind of day. I also noticed that the steering wheel was off Mark's boat, and something was definitely wrong. Mark was scheduled to fish Thursday with John Hitt, so I volunteered BarHopp'R II. After finding out that it would only be he and John, Mark asked me to come along. We figured two guides would surely be better than one! I agreed, happy that I would get to spend another day with John, after all.

That evening, with our game plans made, we listened to the weather and news of a new hurricane, Irene, brewing just south of Cuba. Word was it would be affecting our weather by Thursday, midday. Mark and I headed to the ramp Thursday morning knowing in our hearts that it wasn't going to happen. The wind was already up to 20 knots out of the northeast, and there was lots of rain just to our south on radar. A wet, miserable morning seemed imminent. We met John at the ramp and let him make the call. If the fishing had been great all week, we probably would have been willing to brave the weather. But, as John said, in light of the previous three days, we had nothing to prove.

It was raining before we could get home. It had been a Thursday to Thursday week of Murphy raising his ugly head at every opportunity. Now, Murphy was going to finish the week off, and start off next week with a hurricane forecasted to come right at us. And you though guiding was all fun and games!! I wonder as I finish this report if my kayaks will be the perfect way to get around the neighborhood come Saturday!