It was a great week of fishing here, even with the passing of the cold front, and the week started off with a bang.

Tom Baird and his good friends Carl Steele and Dr. Steve Tipps, were in from Signal Mountain, Tennessee, for two days of fishing Monday and Tuesday. Carl had flown the boys down in his plane, and they were ready for some fishing. I was booked Tuesday when Tom first called, so I set them up with my good bud Capt. Mark Bess for the Tuesday trip.

Monday dawned cool and windy, and I figured bait would be tough, if not impossible. I stopped and picked up 50 hand-picked shrimp on the way to the ramp, just in case. Once on the water, we quickly decided to go take our chances with shrimp.

Shortly after arriving at the first stop, the first of many nice snook fell for the shrimp, and Carl put a beautiful 32 inch, eleven pound snook in the boat after a great fight. He was thrilled with that fish. We were rigging the shrimp in a variety of ways; horn-hooked freelined, horn-hooked with a split shot, tail-hooked freelined, and tail-hooked with a split shot, and they all caught snook. The snook did seem to favor horn-hooked and freelined, though. Through the course of the morning the boys boated a 32 inch, a 31 inch, two 28 inch, two 27 inch, two 26 inch, and some smaller ones, to the best of my recollection. They also caught a flounder, a sheephead, and 5 of those big 4 pound trout we've been catching for the last couple of months.

Tom, Carl, and Steve were a blast. They really enjoyed the fishing, and the catching, and they've fished together for a long time. Carl is a venture capitalist. Steve is an oral surgeon. Tom never did reveal exactly what he did other than that he was retired, and had been involved with chickens.

Tuesday, Mark and I headed to the ramp with expectations that he would be able to repeat the prior day's performance for Tom, Steve, and Carl, and I was hopeful that I'd be able to put my customer for the next two days, Dr. Jerry Matlen, on some nice snook. Jerry wanted to target only snook. Jerry explained that he had caught plenty of redfish and trout, and wasn't interested in them. We'll this isn't exactly the best time of year to be targeting snook, but that was the order of the day, and Jerry fully understood the risks and rewards of targeting one species in an off season.

Bait was once again plentiful on the third span of the causeway, and I was feeling good about returning to where we'd killed them the day before armed with shrimp and shiners. But the good feeling didn't last long. What a difference a day can make. The fishing was tough! Our snook expedition gave Jerry a flounder, a sheephead, 5 large trout around 4 pounds, and about 5 snook hooked, but I don't remember that he landed any. By later in the morning, I think we were both happy to see a couple of nice redfish come off a mangrove shoreline. Jerry lost one, and boated one.

Back at the ramp everyone else I talked to, including Mark and his group, reported very tough fishing, no matter what the species. One other very good guide reported that they had only hooked and landed one snook. Jerry was optimistic about the next day, and commented that he'd never had any luck catching snook. I desperately wanted to change his luck!

Wednesday Jerry and I hit the water with a completely different game plan. We would fish the river early and the flats late. We had even prettier bait, and I was hopeful that he would not only catch some snook, but that I could put him on some big snook. I quickly went straight to one of my favorite spots for big snook, and it wasn't long before Jerry was hooked up. The fish turned out to be a nice jack crevalle, which also frequently hang in the same spot. It's usually easy to tell that you have a jack on, as they don't automatically run for the mangroves. Rather, they are the only fish I know of which can single-handedly surround your boat.

After two or three jacks, the big snook hit came. The silence of the cool morning was pierced by the scream of the drag of Jerry's Shimano Stradic 4000. Pulling against three pounds of drag, the fish headed straight down the shoreline and under the mangroves. I coached Jerry on getting the rod tip down in the water to try to avoid being cut off in the hanging roots. The fish was still on. After a lot of exciting moments, Jerry had the fish still on, and now coming toward the boat. It didn't take Jerry long to get the hand of pumping and reeling in the down position instead of the rod up position. I was feeling confident that Jerry would win the battle at the treeline, and was about to go for the Boga Grip, when the line parted, apparently cut on something. Man! So close, but that's snook fishing. That spot is a tough one to get any snook out of because there is so much cover for them to cut you in. Jerry had come closer to landing that big snook than any of my customers had come in months in that spot. It's tough, but almost always produces some major snook battles.

We tried another of my favorite river spots, and found the terns so bad that we literally couldn't fish. There must have been two dozen of the flying rats raiding my chum before it could even swim off and get into trouble. Ditto for our baits. So, I headed for the flats where I almost always catch plenty of snook, if the tide is right, and it was going to be.

On the flats we still had problems with the birds, but did manage to catch some fish. The snook weren't in a very cooperative mood, but before we had finished, Jerry had lost a couple and boated a couple of undersized fish. We also got some redfish interested in our baits, and Jerry had trouble getting them hooked, as most people do with long casts and light line until they wait on a really tight line. But, he boated 2 out of the 7 reds that hit, caught 6 beautiful trout to four pounds, boated the 2 snook, 4 jacks, and a snapper for the day. I think Jerry was happiest about the big snook that he almost caught!! And, ultimately, I think he was happy to catch a couple of reds. I hope he'll be back to try again next year.

Thursday was the first of two trips with Jody Fisher, of Decatur, Illinois. I had talked with him a great deal via email, and felt like I already knew him. Poor Jody was in the middle of the flap that caused me to disassociate myself from CyberFish Anglers and GCAA! Jody was taking his best friend, Bill Keister, who was to be married on Saturday, on a guided fishing trip as a wedding present. Pretty good present, I'd say! I'd been looking forward to this trip.

After castnetting bait at the causeway we hit a few spots on the slack tide, more or less waiting on the tide to get right on the flats. We had left the dock at 11:00 AM and had bait in an hour. By 1:00 PM I was headed to the flats. I wanted to get there early and try to get the bite started.

It didn't take too long with a little live chumming to get the fish going. I had to move a couple of times, but once the fish started coming to the chum, we had a blast. Bill was kind of quiet, and had a humorous, sarcastic nature about him. He had a heck of a time trying to hook these fish, and wasn't too thrilled with being coached on how to do it, but he eventually realized that I was right and started catching. He was treated to a tremendous hit by a very large snook on the flat. That fish just freight-trained that shiner, and when Bill tried to set the hook, the fish accelerated so hard that it jerked the rod back around to the water and tried to take Bill out of the boat. I think if he hadn't broken the line, he might have. That hit really got Bill's attention.

For the rest of the afternoon we had a great bite going, and Bill and Jody had a blast. By the time we left the fish they had boated nearly 30 big trout, all but one or two weighing in at four pounds, and at least 12 nice redfish up to 9 pounds. I think Jody also got one or two snook on that flat. On our Monday trip with Jody and his wife Terri, Jody told me that Bill was still talking about how much fun he'd had. It had, indeed, been a great day!

Friday morning, I picked up Mike Howard for a second trip this month, this time with his two boys, Jed and Sid. I don't think they had any idea what a day they were about to have.

After getting beautiful bait at number 16 of the second span of the causeway, I went straight to one of my favorite snook holes. It wasn't long before Mike had a 9 pound snook in the boat. It was his biggest snook in 30 years. At the second stop a short while later, Sid tangled (literally) with an 8 pounder that wound up in the mangrove roots. We quickly maneuvered the boat so that Sid could bail out on shore and go after his snook. After some anxious moments, he had her free of the roots and drug up on shore. A 5 pound jack and a small grouper rounded out the early fishing.

As the tide got right I headed for the flats and some redfish action. It didn't take too many swings of the bait bat until we started getting action. As we caught, and I chummed, the action grew quicker. The boys were catching redfish and large trout two and three at a time. I watched as another flats boat poled his way ever nearer, stopping here and there to fish. He could see that we had a hell of a bite going. Pretty soon he poled his boat along our port side and tried to join in the fray. I guess I had the fish chummed pretty tight in front of my boat, as it took a while for his angler to hook his first fish. After some chumming both boats were catching redfish and big trout as fast as we could throw our baits into the water. At one point, we had six fish on between the two boats. Although the action eventually slowed as the day wore on, we left the fish still biting. Mike, Jed, and Sid had boated some 30 or more redfish to ten pounds, and at least 20 trout to 5 pounds. I think we had a dead ringer for February's Angler of the Month.

Looking back on the week, it's hard to believe that was the third week of FEBRUARY!