This was a great week of making new friends and rekindling old friendships.

I spent Monday with Bryan Thomas, who owns Thomas Construction in Clinton, Pennsylvania. I'll have to admit that Bryan was another customer who went straight to the top of my favorites list within a hour. He's easy going, fun, lives to fish, and immediately took the pressure off me to produce. We had such an enjoyable day, I felt guilty taking his money.

We got our bait at St. James Creek, as we have been doing for several weeks, now. Bryan thought the whole process was pretty cool. Then we were off to try to catch some snook on the first of the incoming tide. Bryan bagged one snook and a five pound jack. Once the water was getting higher, we headed to the flats for some redfish. He was staying in a house on Roosevelt Channel, so I took him to an area close by to teach him how to fish it. With some chumming we got the redfish going, and although Bryan missed 8 reds, he did boat 6 nice reds, along with 2 24 inch trout as a bonus.

Once the tide was done, we headed to his dock so I could meet his lovely wife Pam, and she could see the fish. Pam sure seemed every bit as sweet as Bryan had described her, and she was waiting for us with cold drinks ready, and movie camera in hand. After some chat, pictures, and much needed refreshment Bryan and I headed back to the Punta Rassa ramp. It had been such a nice day, like fishing with an old friend, and I almost hated to see Bryan go.

Tuesday was another wonderful day on the water with Rick Bardowell, and his sixteen year-old son, Matthew, from Weston, Florida. You regular readers may remember Rick as the poor fella that I forgot I was supposed to pick up at Tween Waters Inn a couple of months ago. I waited for a couple of hours at the ramp wondering what could have happened to Rick before I gave up and went home, there to discover I was supposed to pick him up! I promised Rick a free makeup trip, and today was our day. Rick's only wish was to take a couple of snook home for his table. We caught tons of snook during our summer trip, but they were out of season for harvest, and Rick had yet to taste the sweet, sweet snook meat.

Well, it didn't take long after catching bait to put snook in the boat. Our first stop was our only stop for snook. Rick and Matt boated half dozen or so snook, with two nice keepers to 27 inches. Rick was thrilled, and quickly told me he didn't care if he caught another fish for the rest of the morning. He had what he came for. In fact, he suggested we go see if we could find some reds, and we left the snook biting.

We tried hard, but just couldn't get any redfish to eat. I think we might have had one or two hits. But, it was OK with Rick. We had a chance to talk a bit, and Rick is an interesting fellow. He grew up in a well to do family in the Caribbean. He now owns an Ace Hardware, and is about to open up a second store. He had decided that fishing is the one thing he totally enjoys, and has vowed to take at least one Friday each month for himself, and fish with me. Now, there's a smart man. Rick is a lot of fun to fish with, and has quickly become another of my favorites.

Boy, it's a good thing there's a lot of room at the top of my favorites list, because Wednesday was spent with another of them, my friend Lew Joseph. Lew's friend and always funny man Bunky Bruce, and Century boat dealer Don Wink were along for the trip. Snook were the order of the day.

After catching bait, I went straight to a snook hole that hardly anyone other than me and the boys in mullet boats can reach on low tide. Don was quite amazed at how shallow my ProCat would run, and was in the white knuckle mode, at first. There were snook in the first hole, but I'll be darned if the boys could get any of them out of there. I counted at least seven lost or missed. We hit some other spots with no snook caught, but I think we caught at least one of everything out there other than tarpon. We had a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant, where I had my first stone crab claws of the season, and finished the day on the flats with a couple of redfish. It had been a great day of fishing, and even though the catching had been slow, Bunky, Lew, and Don were all in top form, and provided some great entertainment.

Thursday, my last trip for the week, was with my old friend and past Angler of the Year, Steve Bronstein. He had brought down Rod Kipp, Pharmacy Supervisor at Walgreens in Tampa, for whom he's currently building a home. After catching bait, snook were once again the prime target.

Although we were on plenty of snook, and Steve and Rod did boat several, there were some big snook lost. We did catch a couple of nice flounder in our snook hole, along with a couple of jack crevalle at another. Between tides we stopped and tried for some inshore grouper. I think we lost more fish than we caught there, as even the small shallow water gag grouper are powerful fighters on light tackle, but we did boat a couple of grouper and a couple of snapper. We finally made it to the flats looking for redfish and were able to score half dozen or so nice reds, along with a few trout.

And, that's how it went this week. It was great to see Steve, Lew, and Rick again. We had some big snook on our lines this week; fish in the 20 pound class, but haven't put one in the boat yet. You can bet we'll keep trying.