Mark Bystrom, a stock analyst, and his father-in-law Ed Jurva, from Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, were first up this week. We had a pretty good south wind blowing like you'd have before a front, and I figured the fishing would be good.

As I had stood on the dock waiting for Mark and Ed, I noticed a boat anchored about half mile away in the river. Once in a while I'd see his white all-round light flash in the darkness. As we cleared the channel to the ramp I could see the engine cowl was off and the boat was apparently in trouble. I pulled along side to see if we could help. Sure enough, there motor had quit and wouldn't fire, so we pulled them the short distance in the heavy current of the river back to safety. A few minutes later, a few throws of the net around pylons 57 to 59 of the causeway, and we were gone fishing. The bait was mixed, and beautiful.

I headed to some of my favorite potholes in a small bay up in the sound to fish the first of the incoming tide. The potholes were pretty hot, and during a couple hours of fishing Mark and Ed landed 10 redfish to 26 inches, 2 snook to 25 inches, a sheephead, several nice trout, and a catfish. We got our slam right there!

Once the rising tide pushed the fish out of the potholes, I headed to one of the many small mangrove keys dotting the Sound in search of snook. What I found was quite a surprise. What we found was trout....big trout! Lots of big trout! That was our last stop of the trip. We sat there for several hours and caught trout as fast as we could throw baits in the water. This was almost like Texas trout fishing. I tried, but couldn't keep count, but can tell you from experience with reds and snook that Mark and Ed caught around 50 trout. The amazing thing was that all but maybe half a dozen were 23 inches and 4 pounds each. We caught trout up to 27 inches that weighted 6 pounds. These were big, fat, hard fighting speckled trout that could pull line against the drag. They were eating our big snook baits like they were snook. Inhaling them. When we occasionally caught a 20 or 21 incher, it looked small by comparison. It was just a spectacular day of trout fishing. All in all, we wound up putting around 70 fish in the boat.

Back at the ramp we were treated to some of the grossest boater stupidity I'd ever seen. I noticed an old center console rig with two guys in it, trying to get off the shallow mud flat near the ramp. He was revving his engine and digging in the mud, and going nowhere. But, they were hollering and hooting at the top of their lungs, and I knew that these guys would be trouble. Well, they finally worked their way off the flat, and almost hit the dock where I was moored before they noticed. Much to my amazement, they turned the boat, full throttled it, and slammed into the second dock at about 20 MPH, throwing them both down, and sending a couple of women who were standing with a pontoon boat, running. One of the girls, a blonde, came running back down the dock and gave these guys all kinds of hell. What did they do? They fired up, and slammed the boat into the far dock. At this point, I knew these guys had to be bad drunk or on drugs. So did the blond, as she went berserk, and came after these guys with a paddle. She held the off the dock for quite a while, but they eventually managed to trailer their boat and escape.

Monday morning looked like a repeat of Sunday, except it was a holiday. The wind was from the south and the high was to be 80. My guest angler was Dr. Joe Mitzan, a chiropractor from Massachusetts. I left the dock wondering if those big trout would still be held up in the same place. Bait didn't take long, but I did manage to tear my net up when I threw it too close to the bridge pilings and the current sucked it into the barnacles. At least I got it back, and could still use it.

I headed straight to a couple of my favorite low tide trout holes. The tide was a bit lower than the day before. As we began to catch trout out of the hole, I noticed we had lots of redfish tailing on the adjacent flat. I asked Joe if he was willing to get out of the boat and chase some tailing reds, and he happy to oblige. I gave him my wading boots, and I went barefoot. We loaded our pockets with live shrimp, and I tied on 2/0 baitholder hooks and we were off on foot. The fish were spooky, very spooky, but we did managed to connect to a couple of nice reds. Joe thought it was a pretty cool and unusual way to catch a fish.

Once the tide was up enough to put the tailers down, I figured it was time to head to my trout hole and see it we could do a repeat of the previous day. I anchored in the same position, and from the first bait that went into the water it was big trout after big trout. They were what I call "cookie-cutter" fish. All but two fish were 23 to 25 inches, weighing 4 to 5 pounds. It was too good to be true. This was some fun trout fishing! The odd thing was that there were boats all around us watching us catch and release these big trout, and I didn't see another fish caught. That had to be frustrating for the onlookers. I found myself wondering how long the trout would be laid up there. Once again, I tried to keep an accurate count of Joe's catch, but he just kept me too busy. My best guess is 30 to 40 trout, all that size. Joe was a lot of fun, and was amazed at the quality of trout, and we had a great time.

Tuesday, Dick Witherow, a vice-president of First Union Bank in Upper Arlington, Ohio, was back down for a quick retreat from the miserable weather back home. He'd called me several days before, desperate to get away from the cold, and fortunately I had a day that worked for him. I invited my best friend Capt. Mark Bess to come along since he was off, and I wanted to show him where I'd been catching these big trout. We quickly caught plenty of bait around pylons 57 and 58 of the causeway, and were headed north.

The tide was even lower than the previous day, and I headed straight back to the same flat where we'd found the tailing reds the day before. As I poled the boat into the area we were treated to the sight of redfish tails popping up all over the place. Mark had brought his homemade pair of flats waders, and I gave Dick my wading boots, and I was going to stay with the boat since I had skinned my feet up pretty well going barefoot the day before.

It didn't take too long before Mark had Dick hooked up to a tailing red. Unfortunately, it got away. Shortly afterward, Dick hooked what we thought was a tailing redfish, that turned out to be a big tailing sheephead. I've also caught tailing snook! Well, I couldn't stand it; watching those two casting to those tails, and watching all those tails all around me. I had to get out of the boat. I dug out my pair of Speedo beach shoes, which aren't made for wading in the much, but are better than nothing, and off I went. I got lots of shots at tailing reds, but they were really tough. They were so intent on their feeding you couldn't get there attention with out pulling the bait right up on top of them, then they'd spook like hell. The strong outgoing current running across the flat was making it impossible to lay the bait down in one place where they could find it. The current would just sweep it away. So, we didn't catch any more fish there that morning, but it had been fun trying, and quite a spectacle to see.

We decided to head to the flats of Flamingo and fish some potholes. By the time we got there the tide was so low, I couldn't even get in with the BarHopp'R. We notice a few reds tailing there and got out once again. I managed to catch a small tailing sheephead, but that was it until the water started in. The fish were really spooky.

Once the tide started to give us floatable water, we headed in to fish some of the potholes, but there wasn't much doing other than a couple of flounder. So, for a change of pace, I headed to a grouper hole to see if we could catch some grouper and snapper. We managed to catch a few small gags there, but lost most of the fish that hit. Mark hit two big ones that really "spanked" him hard.

Finally, the tide was getting about right to go and check out my trout hole. I was keeping my fingers crossed that the fish would be there for a third day in a row. They were still there, but weren't eating like before. We managed to catch 15 to 20 of the speckled beauties to 25 inches. Once that died down, we called it a day. It had been a beautiful day on the water. It was good to see Dick again, and I'm sure he enjoyed his reprieve away from the cold. I don't think he really wanted to leave.

After a couple of days off with a bug, I had Dr. Joe Mitzan back for a second day of fishing. We had a tough east/southeast wind blowing at 25 MPH, and were under a small craft advisory. The tide was way low, and would be that way for most of our trip. The pressure was high, and I figured it would be a tough day. The fish would turn on the following day as the front approached and the wind turned south and southwest. But, Joe was game to give it a shot.

I got all the bait I needed on the first throw in the shallows of the third span of the causeway. The bait was small, so I made a couple more throws to see if there were any bigger baits around. There weren't, so we went fishing.

Of course, I had to stop at my trout hole, even though the water and wind weren't right. Nothing! I tried a snook hole out of the wind. Joe caught one small snook. I went to my redfish potholes, but there was nothing doing. Never saw a red, or saw one push. We hit the grouper hole again, and caught 3 gags, a couple of ladyfish, and a jack crevalle. From there we went to a couple of my favorite trout holes. We caught a few there, but they were mostly small. Toward the end of the trip the water was finally beginning to rise. The wind had been holding the outgoing tide from dropping like it should, resulting in a weak tide. Once the tide started in, it was moving pretty good with the help of the wind. I figured it was time to visit the trout hole again. We caught some fish there, but nothing like in the days before. Joe did loose one big trout, and he did catch a snook, but we ended the day with around 15 trout to 20 inches.

Joe and I had spent a lot of time talking computers and the internet. He's giving serious consideration to building a web page for his practice, and hopefully I helped shed some light on how the whole business works for him, especially about search engines and ranking on them. It was a fun day in spite of the wind, with a relaxed pace, and no sense of urgency to catch, catch, catch.

And that's how the week went. It was a week of the best trout fishing that I've ever seen here. The great thing is that with the passage of time, it will only get better.