It's hard to believe it's the last week of 1998. I don't know where it has gone! It's been my busiest year ever, and I'm hoping 1999 will be even better. We were back to summertime weather at the end of the year, I had four trips on the books for the week, and I was hoping for some good fishing to end the year.

Doug Brown, of Western Springs, Illinois, along with his eleven year-old son, Andy, and his father-in-law, Tom, were ready to try their luck. Doug has a boat here, and was interested in learning more about fishing the area, particularly for snook.

First we were off to St. James Creek to catch bait. Once I had bait in the boat, I showed Doug my style of folding the net, and the finer points of throwing the net. One thing you have to learn to do here if you're going to catch snook, and that's learn to catch shiners. It only took Doug a few throws, and he was beginning to get the net to open. I was sure he'd do OK with some practice.

It was a beautiful day in late December. The wind was light and variable, and the high was to be 80 degrees or better. We had caught beautiful bait, and I also had 50 live shrimp in the well just in case.

Well, the "just in case" factor kicked in early. Although Andy did break off a nice snook right after we got to the first stop, and we did catch a couple of small snook on shiners, the snook, flounder, snapper, grouper, and redfish definitely showed a preference for the shrimp. Although the boys lost several good sized snook, and a couple of redfish, they did manage to catch 2 redfish, 2 trout, a dozen or more snook, a couple of founder, a couple of gag grouper, and 3 snapper, best I can remember. The fish were running small, but at least we had action, which has been hard to come by lately.

I tried to show Doug around a bit, and give him pointers on how and where to fish. We had a great time, and Doug, Tom, and Andy were great to spend the day with. Hopefully, next time time they're down, they'll be able to do better on their own, and I'll see them again, too.

Tuesday, as well as Thursday, was reserved for Drs. Steven Faigenbaum and Howard Goldson, both surgeons from Bridgewater, New Jersey. Steven wanted to do some flyfishing, and Howard was mostly interested in spin. Bait at St. James Creek wasn't quite as big as the day before, but plentiful. I loaded up the rear well. I also had shrimp on board, again.

I took Steve and Howard to fish a shoreline along Regla. I was trying to fish in a manner that would allow Steve to fish his flyrod, and Howard to fish bait. That's not an easy thing to do. Usually, when there's a fly angler on board, he's the only one fishing.

I quickly realized that Steve was a very good flycaster. He had broken his wrist a few months earlier, but was getting back into the groove quickly. Howard was having trouble keeping his rig out of the mangroves. After several trips into the trees to recover his rigs, I decided I was going to have to do something different. I decided that since it was such summery weather, that I would go and look at a summer pattern on the flats. That turned out to be a good call.

It wasn't long after I threw the first couple of batfulls of chum, that we had the first fish eating. At this point, Steve was also fishing with live bait, and we really got the fish going. Over several hours, Steve and Howard caught and released somewhere between 30 and 40 redfish and snook, and a couple of trout for the Slam. I had a hard time getting Howard to wait until the line was completely tight before trying to set the hook, and also in getting him to hit the fish hard, once he did. As a result, Howard lost several BIG snook, and numerios redfish. He finally got the hang of it, though, and started steady catching. We had a great time. Between fish, Steve told me some great jokes. I seem to be locked into a permanent senior moment, and can't remember the first one of them, but they were good.

Although the bite had slowed, the fish were still eating when it was time for us to leave. I suggested Steve try casting to the area where we had the fish chummed up as we drifted across the area. We were all shocked at how many fish I had chummed up on that flat. There were snook, redfish, and trout everywhere!

What a difference a day can make! Tuesday night, rather unexpectedly, a seemingly inconsequential front passed through leaving a little rain. It didn't seem like much of a front, but the next morning told a different story. Gary Sciulla, of Pine Bush, New York, and his brother Pete Sciulla, now of Cape Coral, arrived to find a cold wind howling out of the north. As I pulled into the ramp I was treated to the site of Capt's. Steve Waugh and Skip Dunn pulling out. They, or their customers had cancelled, and I figured Gary would probably do the same. But, after some discussion of their options, they decided to go for it.

To my surprise, bait was still at St. James, as were a couple of other guides. You would have thought we were fishing with bare hooks for most of the morning, though, as absolutely no snook or reds would eat our shiners. We had caught one nice 22 inch trout earlier in the morning, and I finally suggested near the end of the trip, that we go and try to catch some more trout, just to put some fish in the boat. Besides, Pete was new to fishing, and Gary was anxious to have something pull on the end of his line. Well, even the trout were tough, but we did catch a dozen or more before heading in for the day. Hopefully, Gary and Pete won't judge our fishing by our winter fishing after the passage of a front.

As tough as Wednesday was, I knew Thursday would be even tougher. Steve, Howard and I discussed the options at the ramp that morning. Steve is a real sportsman, and also made the observation that he and Howard would be forced to spend the day shopping with the women if they did not go fishing. It was a no-brainer! We went fishing.

I headed back to the area we'd fished two days earlier, but now on the low, low tide to try to find some tailing redfish. I poled the whole flat, and the only thing we saw tailing were some small ducks, which from far off "duck suckered" us into thinking we'd spotted a small pod of reds. We followed the tide as it flooded the flats, chumming as we went. We ran across two schools of redfish, or the same school twice, and chummed the hell out of them without so much as a nibble. Finally, we gave up on the reds, and went up the river looking for a snook that might eat.

Once at one of my favorite pieces of shoreline in the river, we again burned a lot of chum. We were at least able to draw some strikes on the chum, but the snook weren't about to eat anything with a hook in it. It was the last day of the year. I couldn't let this happen, but it did. We finally tossed in the towel around one o'clock and headed home. We ended the last day of the year without so much as a hit all morning. That seemingly weak front had absolutely shut the fishing down around here. I was just glad that Steve and Howard had had the opportunity to see how good the fishing here can be.

Not a very glamourous way to end the year, but that's the way it was. Thanks again to all who have been instrumental in making this my best year ever. I'm hoping, and feel certain, that next year will be even better.