Thanksgiving week started out with more weather cancellations. We were supposed to do the final shoot for our video Tuesday, but were pushed back once again. That night I was the guest speaker at the Charlotte County FCA Chapter meeting. They meet in the beautiful auditorium at the Impac Corporation's Punta Gorda world headquarters. The talk went well, and in fact, I had to cut it short because I ran over my allotted hour. Wednesday, Dr. Denise Mikutis weathered out in favor of trying again on Friday. Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving.

Friday did bring better weather, but the wind was out of the southeast at around 20 knots. Dennis Mikutis, a dentist from Dekalb, Illinois, and his best friend Lou Salemi were ready and eager for action. The barometer was very high and seemed to have the snook and reds shut down. But the trout were more than willing to eat. We hopped from pothole to pothole to pothole, catching big trout in each. Again, we were leaving the trout biting trying to find a hole full of snook or reds. Even so, we caught over 20 big trout, with 2 around 5 pounds, a red, and 2 flounder, but the fish of the day was a keeper snook that Lou caught. He was one happy camper, and said that first snook made his whole vacation.

Saturday I took Gene Christianson and his 12 year old son Mike, his 9 year old daughter Sarah, of Macon Georgia, and his 82 year old father, Ed, from Wisconsin out for a day on Sarasota Bay. The last time I took Gene and his dad out, we caught lots of big redfish, and Ed went straight from fishing to the hospital for a triple bypass. Seriously, the excitement and physical exertion almost did him in. But, had Ed died that day they would have had to surgically remove the smile from his face. I sent him a video to show his buddies back in Wisconsin, and he still talks about that trip.

The bay was flat when we left the dock to catch bait, but by the time we got to Buttonwood Harbor it had picked up to around 20 knots out of the south. We got all the bait we needed in two throws of the net, without any chum. We hit two or three holes without a bite, but on the fourth hole we hit paydirt. We stayed there for the rest of the trip and caught 9 redfish, 2 snook, and 8 nice trout. Sarah caught the biggest snook, and also lost the biggest snook of two that got away. Mike lost a nice redfish. Ed, not moving as fast or as well as he once did, missed lots of hits, and lost lots of fish, but he had a great time. Sarah couldn't wait to get home and tell everyone she caught the biggest fish!

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