This is Thanksgiving week, and is the official beginning of the Holiday Season, and the shopping season. This is traditionally a time for us to give thanks for the wonderful bounty of family, friends, freedom, possessions, and so forth that we enjoy as Americans. But, I want all of you out there, my customers and friends who have been the backbone of my success as a professional guide, to know how thankful I am for each one of you. Without each one of you, I have no business. This has been my best and busiest year ever. I have made many wonderful new friends around the country and across the seas; friends who have left me with many wonderful memories that I will always cherish. Thanks to each and every one.

Now, on to the fishing report. First up on Monday were Marc Johnson, and his good friend from college, Mike. Marc works in the computer end of the Hubbell Space Telescope project, and Mike is a construction superintendent. This was their first time for this kind of light tackle fishing, and I guess they quickly realized they had a lot to learn. Marc and Mike were good students, though, and learned quickly, and didn't seem to mind my frequent coaching.

We had an outgoing tide until just before the noon hour. I really dislike fishing outgoing tides, but Mother Nature and schedules sometimes don't care what we like. The tide was charging so hard that I couldn't even get anchored up in some of the spots I wanted to fish. The bottom is hard shell and limerock, and in a 6 knot current, or better, it's sometimes impossible to get the anchor to hold. Frustrating, to say the least. Through the morning Marc and Mike caught a couple of big jack crevalle, a small grouper, but it wasn't until the tide turned and I was able scoot the BarHopp'R across some real skinny flats to one of my favorite holes, that we caught any snook. There the boys boated a couple of nice snook up to 28 inches, and lost several others.

When the action slowed I took off for some potholes that I fished a couple of winters ago, that were very productive. I figured that on the low tide, there was a good chance of finding some reds laying in those holes. It didn't take long to find out I was right and we quickly had a couple of nice reds, a trout, and a snook out of one hole. I believe I recall several reds being missed, too.

Soon the wind starting doing strange things. It was oscillating back and forth from north to south, and I was pretty sure that it would continue to do so until it finally settled into a westerly seabreeze. It made fishing the hole impossible, and it was beginning to get on into the afternoon, so we headed for home. Although the action wasn't what I would like to have seen, and was more typical of winter fishing, we all had a great time.

Tuesday, the dynamic father and son team of Bob and Jeff Hank were up to try their luck from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They had been on five previous guided trips over the years, and told me that they had not been very happy with any of them. That left me wondering if they would be thinking the same thing about our trip at the end of the day, and hoping not.

We gathered shiners at St. James Creek, where the overall availability is great, and the size is mixed but getting larger. There are still a lot of small baits that will gill in your net and make it hard to throw, so I would recommend that you take as small a mess as you own. Once we were baited up, I headed up the river.

The first stop was a place that I've been seeing and hooking lots of big, big snook. Unfortunately, there have been very few of these fish put into the boat. There have been a lot of pulled hooks, break-offs, and misses, and the fish are really spooky to boot in this very clear, shallow water. These are mostly big fish in the 20 pound and up category. That's a lot of snook for someone new to snook fishing to tackle, but the excitement and anticipation of the big fish is almost to much to pass up. Well, it wasn't long before Bob hooked a monster of a snook. That baby took off for parts unknown, and had almost spooled the Shimano Stradic 2000 when the drag quit screaming and the line went limp. "He broke me off!" Bob said. "No," I replied, "he pulled the hook!" And when Bob got all the line reeled in, he found that his rig was in tact and the hook had indeed pulled. Bob was flabbergasted by the pull of that fish. He said he'd caught a 240 pound sailfish that didn't pull that hard.

After that teaser, Bob and Jeff were in no hurry to go somewhere else looking for fish. We were on lots of big snook. We had them hitting the chum with regularity. In fact, the snook were exhibiting a behavior that I'd never seen before. Every time I'd throw a bat full of chum, the fish would charge sometimes from long distances across the flat right into the bait like Japanese Zeros on a kamikaze raid, then run off again. So, it became a game of sight fishing and casting to the feeding snook. That's something that most people never get an opportunity to do. Jeff and Bob had to put up with my constant coaching, as I tried to get them to cast quicker, harder, farther, and with more precision, but I'm sure they knew that it was their success I was interested in.

All the while this was going on, I was sure that my best bud Capt. Mark Bess was probably having a big time with redfish in the potholes I had fished the day before. I'd told him where they were, and was 99% sure they would be right there on that falling tide on this morning. Mark had taken his party straight to the place I told him. I finally urged Bob and Jeff that we should go up the Sound and join Mark, as although we had been casting to big snook all morning, all we had to show for our efforts was a couple of big flounder and a jack crevalle. So, we finally, reluctantly left the big feeding snook behind.

On the way to the area, I ran across Mark and his party just getting back into the boat at Regla Island. They had already had a fantastic morning of redfishing on that flat, but were forced to leave or be stranded there by the falling tide. They had caught plenty of nice tailers and reds in the potholes until they were forced off the flat. They had found tailers at Regla, but the fish wouldn't eat. I told Mark about the big snook in the river, and they were off for a quick lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant, then to chase some snook. We headed for flats where Mark had left them tailing. I figured I could still get my big barge into that skinny water, as my BarHopp'R will float a lot skinnier that Mark's Skinnywater.

We arrived to find no water and no tailing redfish. The water was really low now, and it was the bottom of the low tide, and the fish were down. I figured they were laying off in the potholes waiting on the water to start coming in. We polled into the shallows to the first pothole. It had fish in it. We could see them moving around, but only got a big trout to eat. We moved to the next hole. We could see a number of nice redfish moving around in that hole, and there was a snook busting bait on the back side of the hole. It wasn't long after I threw a few stunned shiners into the hole that Jeff was hooked up to a nice redfish. As I recall, Jeff caught several out of that hole, but Bob didn't score. Bob, a baseball pitcher in his youth, kept trying to cast with one hand. I, of course, kept nagging him about using two hands, and making longer casts. Distance casting is essential in this kind of fishing. But, Bob, good natured devil that he was, just took it all in stride. He's the first guy I've see that could throw a slider with a shiner.

Jeff had wanted to do a daylight to dark trip, and although we did fish until around 3:00 PM, I was forced to cut the trip a little short. We stopped to fish an oyster bar after leaving that flat. When we were ready to leave my starter motor was slow to turn the engine over, and I knew that my batteries were not in good shape. I was afraid of being stranded with low batteries, and you can't hand pull-start that Yamaha! I had checked the batteries that morning with my Condition Meter, and they were at 90%. But, I had noticed that I had not been getting the time between charges that I should have been getting. The Hawker drycell batteries were on the way out, for some reason.

Back at the docks Bob and Jeff told me that it had been the most successful guide trip they had been on. I was grateful for that, but couldn't help wishing that I'd taken them up to the flats for early redfish with Mark, instead. We would have had a lot more fish in the boat. But, the lure of those big snook was might strong, and Bob did get to feel the pull of his life. Bob and Jeff were lots of fun, and I hope to see them again.

Wednesday was spent at Smith Marine, where the great Hawker Battery warranty was exercised without question. Don't worry, I still like the batteries, and it's hard to beat a warranty like that. While there, I had Danny rewire the trolling motor power leads so that the quick disconnect plug would be off the deck and out of the water.

Friday, I was out for the first time with Steve Lilly from West Palm Beach, and his good friend Rick Reuschlein, of Silver Sprint, Maryland. Back during the summer I had referred Steve to my friend Capt. Kevin Holley because I was booked. They did tarpon, and Steve told me that he'd had a great time with Kevin, and that he was a great guide. I knew this, of course, but was very glad to hear the compliment on Kevin.

We'd had a front pass, and the wind was around from the north. We also had an outgoing tide all day, and I told Steve that I was pretty sure that it was going to be a tough combination to fish. But, the worst part of that formula was that it was Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. I knew it would be a zoo out there. It was!

I opted to go for the snook again, as we had done Tuesday. I figured there was a good chance there wouldn't be any other boats in the area. Although we were the first boat there, we were soon joined by another boat, which turned out to be my friend Capt. Maxie Stanford. He was in a customer's boat, and I didn't recognize him at first. We were joined a little later by my friend Lew Joseph in his Lady G. I had run into him catching bait, and told him about the snook in this place, and invited him to come fish them with us.

Well, don't you know those snook refused to eat. I chummed my way down the shoreline, and used a whole baitwell full of shiners in the process. The snook would come pop a shiner or two then leave, or at least ignore further offerings. Neither I, Maxie, nor Lew could get the first hit. We did catch one nice flounder, though. We ran after a jack attack not far away just to try to get some action on the ends of our lines. They were moving quickly, though, and we only got one jack, and Rick got a big gafftop sail catfish. We moved on.

At the next stop, Steve had a nice snook blast his shiner as he was lifting it out of the water at boatside. That was encouraging. A couple of casts later, Steve got nailed by the snook of a lifetime. She charged so hard for the trees about 50 yards away, that she made it to the cutoffs before I could get Steve squared away on how to slow her down. It was a big fish. She was smoking 12 pound line off a Shimano Symetre 4000 against 3 pounds of drag, and stripped the ring gear in the reel during the process. I've never seen that happen before. It was after that big snook that Steve told me he'd only caught one snook in his life. I had mistakenly assumed that he'd probably caught a lot of snook over there on the east coast. I guess that snook was quite a surprise. Steve said he'd practice the techniques I had hurriedly tried to show him at home, so he'd be ready for the next big snook attack.

Lew came and told us he'd found some jacks or snook busting bait up in Shell Creek, and invited us to join him. It was a tough anchor situation as there were eddy currents running seeming in every direction, and the current was a good 6 knots. We watched Lew's friend Boyd lose a nice fish. Then we managed to catch several big river jacks up to around seven pounds. What a great fighting fish! But, no snook.

I had planned to take Steve and Rick up to the flats for redfish in the potholes as the tide got down low, but Steve told me he had to be back in around one o'clock to keep a date with the family. I was disappointed, as Steve and Rick were a lot of fun, and I was sure I could put them on some redfish when the water got right. But, it would have to wait until another trip.

That was it for Thanksgiving week. I know I've said it before but I'll say it again. I've got the best customers in the business.