I broke my no weekends rule this week, working Sunday, so I could fish with Chuck Labar, one of my favorite people. I thought I would be fishing with Chuck, his beautiful wife Kim, and their three year-old son Chase, whom I'd hadn't met, but Sunday morning Chuck was by himself. Kim had thought better of taking a three year-old out on the boat for the day.

Chuck and I headed out to the beach, and soon had plenty of bait for a day's fishing. The first stop of the morning, which is usually very productive on the first of the incoming tide, only gave us a half dozen snook. I asked Chuck if he wanted to take a ride out to the Stickbeach to see if there were any big reds holding up out there. He was agreeable, so we were off. As I cleared Redfish Pass, I thought I'd do something I hadn't done in many years; run some of the closer buoys in search of tripletail. Not far from Blind Pass, I ran by a buoy that was holding a large tripletail of 15 to 20 pounds. I turned around and got upwind to make my approach. Chuck was wondering what I was doing, so I explained to him about the odd tripletail. Once anchored on the buoy we baited up and casted our baits to within a foot or two of the target several times. I was beginning to think the tripletail, which will usually eat anything that is thrown their way, wasn't going to eat. All of a sudden Chuck's line veered quickly off to the right, and Chuck struck. To his dismay and delight, the fish freight-trained him. Chuck was really caught off guard by the tremendous pulling power of that tripletail. I though he had the fish safely away from the buoy, but as quickly as she had run right, away, she turned left and headed back for her suspended home. I coached Chuck to try to get the fish inside the buoy before she could get there, but the fish was just too much for 8 pound line and a newcomer to tripletail fishing. She cut him off above the hook on the leader. Chuck's eyes were the size of fifty cent pieces. He was liking that.

There may have been other fish down on the buoys and out of sight, but she was the only one I saw on the way to the Stickbeach. Once there, there were no reds to be found. But there were plenty of mackerel just off the beach, and to my surprise there were still some resident snook in the trees. Unfortunately, the near misses we had in October with three hurricanes, really rearranged the sand and trees on the beach, and there is very little wood left in the water. That's not a good thing, and could seriously affect the fishing there this coming summer. Chuck caught three snook on the beach, but the best one was one that I spotted laying just off the edge of the sand in the surf. I instructed Chuck to cast just ahead of the fish. He made an expert cast, and we watched the fish pick up the shiner and take off. Very cool. Chuck was loving the sight fishing. Although there were some snook on the beach, they weren't there in good numbers, so we elected to head back inside. I suggested we pull in at the Gulf side of Tween Waters to see if we could spot Kim and Chase on the beach. As we were idling in, Chuck's cell phone rang, and it was Kim. She came down to the beach to meet us, and I got to meet Chase, who is a very large doll.

After chatting a little, we decided we'd all head around to the Waterfront for lunch and a boat ride. It was Sunday, and they were busy, so we were there for a while, but Kim said it was the highlight of her day. On the way back, I took them up through Roosevelt Cut, so they could check out all the beautiful waterfront estates. At the bayside dock, Chase was obviously disappointed that the boat ride was over. We were all glad we'd done the Waterfront thing.

Chuck and I finished up the day with a few more small snook, a couple of nice trout, and half dozen nice jack crevalle. We hadn't set the world on fire like we did in the spring, but it had been a great day with old friends. I can't wait until next time.

I was scheduled to fish another of my favorite people, Jeff Hank, on Monday. I grew concerned about a mix-up when I didn't hear from him Sunday night. I had no way to contact him, and left him an email just in case he was checking them. Monday morning, I was at the ramp bright and early. I waited until eight o'clock before heading home, wondering what could have possibly happened to Jeff. I had checked my email history Sunday night, and knew I had the correct date for Jeff. This would be an office day. Late in the afternoon, I finally got a call from Jeff wanting to know what time to meet on Tuesday. Needless to say, Jeff was embarrassed and perplexed at how he and his dad had gotten the date screwed up. Actually, they had the correct date, but the wrong day. Jeff really wanted to fish, so I arranged for him to go on Tuesday with another guide.

Tuesday morning I met Dean Sudik, of Edmond, Oklahoma, and his friends Woody Williams and Dennis, of Arlington, Texas. Dean had said something about their being the Good, Bad, and Ugly, but I didn't know who was supposed to be who. They were fun guys, and we had a good time. They were new to our brand of fishing, but did just fine.

Dean wanted to catch a jack crevalle, which he'd never done. Normally, jacks are not a problem this time of year. I thought I could put him right on a bunch of jack attacks after we were done with our first snook stop. We caught a dozen or more snook, mostly small, but do you think I could find a jack when I wanted to? Hell, no! But we did catch a lot of trout, and Dean boated one nearly five pounds that really thrilled him. We also got a nice gag grouper that wasn't quite big enough to keep, and finished off with a nice redfish. We finished the day at the Waterfront.

Wednesday, I was scheduled to fish with Jeff Brown and his dad. Jeff showed up by himself at eight o'clock, ready to fish the incoming tide. His dad had unfortunately taken ill. With one angler, it would be like a day off.

Bait was pretty tough on the beach for some reason, but the biggest challenge was just finding the beach from the ramp. You see, we had fog so thick you could cut it with your fillet knife. To my surprise, and I'm sure to Jeff's, I came out of the fog right at the lighthouse. He commented that I must have done that a time or two before. Experience is a great teacher.

It took us a while to get what we needed. By the time we were done, Jeff was pretty proficient at the helm. We headed up the sound. Our first mission was to find some ladyfish. I wanted some to chunk for redfish later in the day. I stopped at a hole that was near the first place I wanted to fish. It's usually full of ladyfish, but on this morning, there were nothing but trout. I waited at that spot for at least a half hour on a boat that was poling the flats near where I wanted to fish a hole. I didn't want to run in there and spook this guys fish, so I waited for him to pole off to the east.

Finally, I figured I had a good quarter mile between him and the mangroves, and headed in. I ran along the mangroves where nothing but my boat or an airboat dare to thread, giving him all the room I could. Still, he chose to scream and raise hell. I knew I hadn't bothered his fish, and ignored him. The proof was that he stayed right there on his fish until the tide got high enough that they quit tailing. I had waited too long, and the best part of the bite was already over. We only took 6 or 7 snook to 25 1/2 inches from that hole.

With the tide coming in strong, I headed to a shallow water spot that's either hot or cold, rarely anything in between. It was pretty warm! We caught at least half dozen redfish and a dozen trout, two of which were four pounds. But, the redfish weren't big. I asked Jeff if he wanted to take a chance on a long run that may pay with some big reds. He was game, and we were off. It didn't take much chumming on the shallow flat before we had our first customer. It was eleven pounds. Jeff was thrilled! In the next hour before the tide quit, Jeff caught around ten of the brutes on the eight pound Daiwa Emblem Z 2000/St. Croix Premier rigs. He was having some serious fun. Jeff had to get back to his family, so we had to forego the trip to the Waterfront on the way home. I really enjoyed the day with Jeff. He's a guy that loves to fish, and I have a feeling I'll be seeing him again.

After a couple of days off for Thanksgiving with my daughter, we headed to St. James City, on Pine Island, to visit and fish with my very old and close friends, Butch and Arles Boteler. Butch and I have spent many a day over the years throwing plugs at redfish and snook together, and had a lot of fun doing it. But, as I've become very much in demand in recent years, there hasn't been much time for me to do that. When I'm on the water and away from my wife all week long, it's just not right for me to be out fishing on the weekend. Besides, I need time off the water to recuperate. I don't think Butch understood that at first, but I think he's beginning to understand, now. We've resolved to try to make more time to fish together, and were both looking forward to this day.

Butch and Arles bought their little place on the water earlier this year, and will eventually move there from Kissimmee and make it their permanent home. Until then, they spend every weekend they can there. Butch has one of his hunting boats, a Go Devil, there, and it's the coolest thing for motoring around in the skinny water. If you're not familiar with the Go Devil, it has a twin opposed cylinder 25 HP engine mounted on a frame with a long shaft to the prop, all mounted up on top of the transom, and controlled with a tiller. The whole engine and prop shaft move as a unit. When you want to go, you dip the prop into the water. It will run almost as shallow as my kayaks!! It makes very little noise in the water, and the fish will allow you to get amazingly close before they spook. I predict there will be a day when you see a lot of these things on the water.

We started our day throwing plugs. Butch turned me on to a Cotee 1/8 oz. white jig head/white swim-tail shad combo that is really dynamite! The fish just love it. We also took along some frozen ladyfish chunks. We had a cold front bearing down on us, and the weather changed rapidly that morning with the kicking wind. We knew it would be a tough day. We started by catching lots of small snook and trout in some of the creeks. As the tide dropped out, we went up into the Sound in search of tailing redfish. I guess the weather had them down, as the only fish we found were up north of Demere; a small pod. I managed to catch two of them, one with 27 spots, before the tide got high enough to cover the tails.

Later, while fishing a pothole, I noticed there was bait all around the bow of the boat. We quickly put a net over them and filled the giant above deck livewell. Now, we had options. The potholes were only giving up trout, so I suggested we go to one of my favorite spots, which had given up lots of good reds and big trout a couple of day before. I had shown the spot to Butch on a previous trip, and he said that he hadn't caught much on it. I assured him that it was always worth 15 minutes if the tide was right, and it was getting right.

Now, I have to set this story up a little bit. My friend Butch is no doubt the best fisherman I've ever had in my boat. I'm not just saying that. It's true. Besides being the most hard-core fisherman I know, he can beat a fish down and put it in the boat quicker than anyone I know. He knows how to fight a fish, keep it out of trouble, and put pressure on it........with a baitcast rig. That's right, he is brand new to spinning. He's one of the few people I've ever seen that can throw a shiner with a baitcaster, but it's just not far enough to get the job done out here where distance is everything. More than once he's had to watch me and other of our friends catch like crazy on light tackle spinning gear while he was fighting to get a shiner where it needed to be with a baitcast reel.

This day was no different. He was fighting his Shimano, trying to get the small baits where they needed to be. I told him he should put his baitcaster down, and force himself to use his brand new Daiwa Emblem X 3000 until he was comfortable with it. To my surprise, he did just that. Butch had no more than thrown his bait a nice long cast toward the target when it was hammered by a big snook. The first thing I saw was this beautiful fish tail-walk about 30 ft. across the water. Butch set the hook, and the fight was on. The whole time Butch was complaining that he was afraid to put pressure on the fish with his spinner, and he didn't know what to do with the fish, and that he was afraid he would lose it. I got a good laugh out of it. Here's the best fisherman I know feeling unsure of himself because of the reel he's using. I kept telling him to pressure the fish the same way he would with his baitcast reel. As he babied the fish, I was afraid the snook would rub through the leader and get away, and I didn't want to be in the boat if that happened! But as the fight continued, Butch's confidence built, and he put the fish in net position, and we put her in the boat. It was a beautiful 34 inch, 11 pound snook. It wasn't his biggest snook, but it may well be the one he's most proud of because of the equipment he used to catch it. I think that one fish made a believer out of my friend. He was thrilled with that fish, but I think I was even more thrilled for him. It was a great moment that I guess only good fishing buddies could understand.

We finished the day back where we had started, except now the water was coming in well and we were fishing with shiners. We caught more small snook and trout. We ended the day with 2 redfish, lots of small snook, lots of trout, 3 ladyfish, and Butch's big fish. It was a day I wouldn't trade for anything. It was a day too long in coming. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed spending the day with my long time fishing buddy, Butch Boteler. It was a pretty good way to end the week, too. I think our New Year resolution will be to do it a lot more!