Well, it's Christmas week, and although I'd wanted to take some time off over the holidays, I still wound up booking three trips for this week. Or, so I thought.

First up on Monday was a great guy named Jeff Henry, of Fenton, Michigan, and his father-in-law, Joe. He had requested a fly fishing trip. I stopped at Danny's Bait and bought hand-picked shrimp on the way to the ramp that morning. Of course, we stopped and caught shiners at St. James Creek, so that I'd have bait to chum with while Jeff flyfished.

On the way to the first fishing stop I spotted a school of ladyfish popping glass minnows on the surface, and thought it would be a good opportunity for Jeff to catch some easy fish on fly. Ladyfish are suckers for just about anything when they're up top and poppin'.

I tied on a Spitfire topwater popper as Jeff got ready. Once Jeff started waving his 9 weight flyrod, I realized that we might have a problem. Jeff was fanning the air hard with his rod, but was only making a good breeze. He wasn't casting the fly far enough to catch even an eager ladyfish. They were willing to eat, as I was hooking one on almost every cast with the plug.

I asked Jeff if he minded if I gave him some pointers. Jeff quickly assured me that he was here to learn, was new to the sport, and would welcome any instruction. I knew that for him to have any success with the flyrod, we'd have to get him casting 50 to 60 feet, at least.

As I evaluated Jeff's casting, I observed that he was working the rod way too fast, was dropping the rod almost to the water on both the front and back casts, and was extending or pushing his arm way out in front of him on the front cast in an effort to get the fly out. The combination of the above was serving to collapse his loops before they could form. So, first I tried to illustrate to Jeff, by holding his arm and casting for him, how to accellerate the rod, slow it, then feel the flyline load the tip, then accelerated the rod in the other direction, feel the line, etc. I got him to bring his arm in close to his body, and keep the rod tip between ten and two on the clock face.

Well, I've got to tell you, that Jeff was a great student, and should get the award for most improved fly caster. It wasn't long before Jeff was rolling very nice loops and getting his distance. The transformation was amazing! At one point, Jeff exclaimed in glee, "I'm actually casting the fly!!" I knew that if I put him on some tailing reds, he'd have a good shot a catching one.

So, we were off to catch the super low tide on the Buck Key flats. The reds were there, allright, but they weren't tailing in big numbers. There were enough tailing for us to catch some, though, and we were out of the boat and off to the races. Jeff moved off to cast to some fish tailing about 75 yards away, and it wasn't long before Joe and I were treated to Jeff's excitement of hooking his first red on fly. It was a beauty, and Jeff had the fish almost at his feet and ready to land when he put a little to much pressure on the drag, and broke her off. Damn! I would have given anything to have gotten a picture of Jeff with that fish, but it was a professional release, instead. Jeff didn't mind, he was happy to have had her on the end of his flyline.

Meanwhile, Joe and I were stalking tailers with Texas rigged shrimp. I had several follows with no takes. Then, after seeing only the dorsal fin pop up in front of me, I hooked a beautiful 29 inch red, which I quickly passed to Joe. She gave him a real thrill in that shallow water on 8 pound test. We got our pictures, too.

Once the water was up to the point where the fish quit tailing, we headed off to a trout hole just to see if we could put some fish in the boat real quick. We had burned most of the morning already. At the trout hole we caught a dozen or more nice speckled trout before calling it a day.

It had been a great day! Jeff was very happy, as was I, with his much improved casting. He'd gotten a red on fly, and it had been like a late spring day. Beautiful!

Tuesday, Bob and Teresa Johnson, honeymooners from Tallahassee, Florida, were ready to take a break from the usual honeymoon activities and spend a day on the water......outside. Bob is a serious, lifelong fisherman. Teresa likes to fish, but isn't all that serious, yet. It's one hell of a woman who will go on a fishing trip with her hubby on their honeymoon, though.

After catching bait at St. James Creek, we headed up to the Flamingo area to see if we could find some tailing redfish. Bob had seen tailers, but had never had the opportunity to fish for them. Well, don't you know, the fish weren't tailing. We did see a couple pop up and down, and chased after them, never to see them again. I managed to get a couple of follows, but that was it. And the fish had been tailing there every day on that low water!

I headed up to the river to one of my favorite areas. It has been covered with really big snook, but no one has managed to boat one, yet. Lots of pulled hooks and broken lines. Well, the snook were there, as I predicted. We could see them all too well, but do you think they'd come eat a bait? Nope! Long story, short, we boated one snook and two jacks for the morning. I took it a lot harder than Bob did. He's a true sportsman, and knows all too well the tricks mother nature can pull on you. Back at the docks I talked to Capt's. Steve Waugh, Kevin Holley, John Eaton, Skip Dunn, and others; some of our area's top guides, and was kind of relieved to find that they'd all had similar results. It was just one of those days that the fish wouldn't eat. It had been a beautiful day, though, and we topped it off with a wonderful lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant at St. James City.

Wednesday night, as I checked my schedule to see who was up for Thursday, I realized painfully that it would probably be an exercise in futility. I had reserved the day for John Woods, of Lenexa, Kansas, way back in mid-August. I sent him an email confirmation reserving 12/23/98, and requesting a deposit. Problem is, I failed to realize with the passage of time, that he never sent me a deposit. As I looked at my calendar, and realized he never sent me a deposit, I knew he'd be a no-show. I know I should have picked up the fact that he didn't remit a deposit, but I will never for the life of me understand why he couldn't have had the courtesy to send me one more email telling me that he'd changed his mind, changed his plans, or something.

I knew that he probably didn't know where and when to meet me, even if he did want to fish, but I wasn't about to chance him showing up, and me not, so I was at the ramp ready to go as usual at 6:30 AM. I waited around until around 7:30 AM, and headed home. It was time for Christmas.

My Christmas holidays were somewhat disrupted by a failed computer program known as Cyber Contact. It's a great internet contact management software that I have used to keep track of people and emails for a couple of years. But, I think I exceeded it's design limits, or something, as I hit around 800 clients, and it began corrupting the data files to the point where I couldn't make it work. Panic!! I made the switch to a magnificant program I found searching the net called Maximizer, but I had the arduous and time consuming job of re-entering all the data for 800 people before I could function again. There's always something, right?

Before you hear from me again, the year will have probably drawn to a close. I'd like to once again thank everyone who has fished with me, corresponded with me, or just made my day by walking up to me at the docks or a bait shop and telling me that you've been following me on my website. It has been a great year, and I thank you all for your support and input.
Happy New Year.