This week being Christmas week, I wasn't much interested in working a whole bunch. I did reserve Wednesday and Thursday for my good friends and regular customers Russ Hubbard and Gilles Boudreau, who are themselves, good friends and fishing buddies. Russ sits right up there at the top of the totem pole of my favorite people. He greeted me with a big hug and a Christmas present, which just made my day.

Wednesday was a beautiful day for Russ and his friends John, and John's son Chad. The high was to be 81, and the wind was out of the southwest at less than 10. But, it was the day of the full moon, and the moon being closer to earth than it has been in the past century made for one unbelievably low tide. I don't know that I've ever seen a lower tide, even with a north wind blowing. I wasn't sure that even the BarHopp'R would get me to the spot I wanted to fish this day.

We first headed to the causeway to look for bait. With Russ at the helm offering up some masterful boat handling, we made a few throws around the pilings and in the shadows without a score. I decided to move out to the shadow line away from the bridge. On the first throw we loaded up with shiners and threadfins about equally mixed. It was time to go fishing.

I arrived at one of my favorite low tide redfish holes to find the entire flat out of the water. This was indeed a low tide. I was sure that when the tide started in and began covering the flat, the reds would come with the water. I decided to work my way down along the edge of the flat where it dropped out into deeper water. It was only a couple of weeks before that I saw a huge tarpon free jump twice right in these waters.

Not long after anchoring we had our first action. A snook of monstrous proportions, I'm guessing nearly 30 pounds, blew up Chad's large threadfin on top like a bomb going off, and headed for parts unknown. This was Chad's [first] fish! The fish was nearly to the end of the 10 pound test line on the Daiwa Emblem X 2500 before she ran out of gas. The only thing Chad could do was hang on and hope. I was about to go for the anchor. As the monster came to the end of her run Russ and I went in to the coaching mode, trying to give Chad a crash course on how to handle this big snook. But, the snook had apparently exhausted herself on the long run and wasn't offering a lot of fight. Chad wasn't keeping the rod tip bent enough, which meant he was allowing some slack in the line. Suddenly, the line went limp, with the fish half way back to the boat. Damn! Once Chad got the line in, we could see that the leader was cleanly cut. What had apparently happened was that the fish was able to wrap herself in the leader and cut it with her secondary gill plate, which is as sharp as anything Gillette ever made!

Soon, we were able to move up into the skinny water pockets along the edge of the flat, and begin chumming for redfish. It wasn't long before we had some action going. We were throwing live threads along with sliced and diced threads. The cut bait, predictably, won the day. Russ, John, and Chad put around a dozen big reds to 10 pounds in the boat, along with a couple of trout in the 4 pound class, and a couple of gafftop sail cats. Not a bad way to break in a couple of new guys. We finished the day at the Waterfront.

Thursday was a different day. A mild cold front had passed through over night, and the wind was now east/northeast, but not blowing hard. The barometer was up there. I had a hunch it might be a tough day of fishing for my friends Gilles Boudreau and Dave Hench, but hoped I was wrong.

We headed to the causeway in search of bait again. I was also carrying frozen bait and live shrimp, just in case. I made a few throws that came up empty. I had Gilles motor us into a tide line where we could see terns circling, but not diving. I figured that was a sure sign the bait they saw was too big for them, which meant it should be just right for us. The first throw netted enough bait to fish for the day. On the second throw the net was so full of bait I had to have Dave help me pull it into the boat. We loaded the well, then loaded a bag or two with bait to freeze. It was beautiful bait 4 to 7 inches long, and all shiners. We were off.

I decided to run out to the waters off the lighthouse to see if we could jig up some pompano. It's a wonderfully good eating fish, that resembles a jack crevalle, and is a close cousin to the permit, and fights in a similar manner. They rarely get bigger than 2 or 3 pounds, and have only been back in our waters as a hook and line resource for the last two or three years since the net ban. Tell me the net ban hasn't made a difference! We bounced shrimp-tipped jigs off the bottom, but the pompano didn't want to play. We caught a lot of small jacks and blue runners, but not our target species. I told the boys we would come back on the incoming tide later in the day, after we tried for redfish.

Back at my redfish hole, there was even less water than the day before. There was also a guide boat up in the area that was my final destination. He'd probably seen me there the day before pulling those big reds out, as there were five boats within seeing distance that didn't appear to be catching anything. We started by poling along the edge of the long flat while Gilles and Dave cast shiners along the edge. There were a lot of trout here. The tarpon also made themselves known. I threw a hand full of chum, and then a big shiner behind them at where we'd seen them wake. Within a few seconds....boom! I was hooked up. The tarpon accelerated like a top fuel dragster and jumped, breaking the 8 pound line. She was in the 30 to 40 pound range.

We worked the area hard on the first part of the tide. We caught 6 to 8 trout up to 4 pounds, several gafftop sail cats, 4 ladyfish, and missed the only two redfish hits we had. They just wouldn't eat, but they were there. We could see them pushing and waking. I think maybe they had been run over too much and were just too spooky to settle down. In addition, another guide boat had run right up to within 150 yards of us on his big motor, which didn't help matters. I suggested we head to lunch at the Waterfront, and then back to the pompano grounds. The boys were ready for that.

By the time we got back to the waters off the lighthouse, the tide was just starting out. We made drift after drift, each time catching all manner of fish. We caught jacks and blue runners, a couple of black sea bass, squirrelfish, 2 nice Spanish mackerel, a gag grouper, ladyfish, 7 bonethead sharks in the 4 to 6 pound range, and 6 nice pompano. We couldn't keep track, but we must have caught 60 or more fish through the course of the day. We had a blast. We had tangled with just about everything we have in our waters. For a trip that was to be my last working trip of the year, it was a great way to end the year.

May the next millenium be full of big fish for everyone.