Now that we're in to the season and I'm fishing six days a week, it's very difficult to get out a timely fishing report. I'm very thankful to those of you who have let me know how much you enjoy my reports. I could never have imagined they'd be so popular. Please be patient with me. I'll get the reports out as quickly as I can.

Although I try to take weekends off, circumstances dictated that I work Sunday. Jody Fisher, whom I'd had out with his best friend on Thursday, was back with his lovely wife Terri. I had hoped that I could duplicate the great trip on Thursday, but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. A cold front passed through during the middle of the day, and it turned drizzly and cold. We did manage to have fun and catch some fish before the front. Jody and Terri caught 3 snook to 24 inches, and let a big one get away. Later in the morning they bagged 4 nice redfish to 8 pounds, and 5 big trout of 4 pounds and better. Boy these big trout are great!

Jody was nice enough to take the time to write me a wonderful email describing our trips from his point of view. I will put his letter up on the testimonials page soon. Thanks Jody for the great company and great fun.

With the passing of the front, I knew that Monday morning would dawn cold and blowing from the north. It did! As you'll see as you read this report, this front really shut the fish down more than usual. I expect the catching to be slow for at least the first two days after the passing of a cold front, but this one shut them down for the rest of the week.

My customer for Monday was David Reinhart, of Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania. David was a hell of a nice guy to spend the day with, and took the weather in stride. He was just glad to have left winter behind in Pennsylvania!

We worked hard for bait, but got it, and I went straight to one of my favorite winter north wind a blowin' spots. It's a great area with lots of places to fish protected from the north wind. It's full of snook and other fish year-round. It's just a question of whether the fish will eat. Well, we fished hard, but the fish had a serious case of lockjaw, and David only managed 2 snook to 23 inches, a snapper, 2 beautiful 4 pound trout, and a nice redfish of around 8 pounds. I wasn't much, but wasn't that bad for a day with a 25 knot north wind blowing. We had a great time, and David was happy with the day.

I knew Tuesday would be more of the same for my friends and very favorite customers Lou and Phyliss Dolen, who were down for their annual visit with his dad in Sarasota, and a couple of days of fishing with me. I love to fish with Lou. He loves to fish more than anyone I know. He fishes like a man possessed. He doesn't care what for, or how, he just loves to fish, and he's done it all. I was really flattered when he started the morning off bragging on me, and told him he'd better not do that so I wouldn't get a big head. But the fishing was so tough that by the end of the day I couldn't even find my head. It had been shrunk down to nothing. We fished hard all day, and got one redfish, 2 trout, and 3 gag grouper to 18 inches. I think we had more hits from the seagulls and turns than we did from the fish. I half seriously offered to find Louie another guide for the next day, but he declined.

I thought that surely by Wednesday the fishing would be back to near normal, at least. Boy, was I wrong. Louie, Phyliss, and I fished hard again all day long, and covered a lot of ground. We fought starving birds all day long as part of the deal. They can absolutely ruin your chances of success. When they're hungry and can't find food for themselves, they will follow you all over the Sound, diving on your baits as soon as they hit the water. They also scare the fish on a shallow flat. Although the wind had finally laid down and was light and variable, the birds made it practically impossible to get a bait into the water unmolested. The birds were so hungry and fearless that one repeatedly dived-bombed a dead shiner in the cockpit of my boat until it broke it's own neck. Amazing! When we dropped it's twitching body into the water the other bird left the scene. Hey, we may be on to something!

Well, at any rate, by the end of the day, Louis, Phyliss, and I had all expanded the dark side of our linguistic abilities, and we had 1 snook, 1 trout, 1 flounder, 1 big stingray, 1 lizard fish, and 1 tern to show for our frustrations. Phyliss dubbed this a "salami slam"! Louie, who has at least one of everything he's ever caught mounted in his trophy room, took the ugly little lizard fish home to join the rest of his relatives on the wall. At least it was a pretty day to be out, and the company was great! I hope the Dolens draw better weather next year. We've had some great trips, and we've had some tough trips, but this was the toughest!

Thursday morning I was still holding out hope the snook and redfishing would improve, but for me at least, it wasn't to be. My customer was Jim Siegman, in from Goshen, Indiana, for a much needed day of relaxation. Jim was a great guy, too. He was quite willing to settle for some trout fishing when the glamour species didn't want to cooperate, and said that he really enjoyed catching them. I went as far as the Pineland Marina channel looking for snook, without so much as a hit. We settled for 20 or so trout, and then ended the day with lunch at the Waterfront restaurant, which he really liked. Spending the day with easy going Jim served to remind me that we get too hung up on numbers and glamour fish, and sometimes miss the real point of fishing, which is to enjoy the WHOLE experience, and appreciate the wonders of nature the those who don't fish never get to experience. If they only knew what they're missing!

I was almost relieved to see Friday arrive. At this point, I just wanted to get this week behind me. My customer was Patricia Candon, of Melbourne, Florida, a gorgeous auburn haired beauty, who was surprising her boyfriend Dr. Tim Allison with a fishing trip to the west coast.

Tim showed up that morning with Shimano Sustains mounted on Loomis rods, and I knew that I had a real hard-core fisherman on my hands. I desperately wanted to put him and Patricia on some snook and redfish, but knew the chances of that were probably slim. The wind had been out of the north/northwest all week, the mornings had been cold, and the barometer had been way high, all serving to shut down the fishing, except for trout. In addition, we'd had really poor, slow moving tides every morning, which died in the afternoons. The kiss of death on fishing!

Bait was still holding in the same place it had been all week, and apparently only a couple of us guides knew about it, as only Mark Bess, Kevin Holley, and I were showing up to get it there. Bait wasn't easy, but we did have plenty. In addition, I'd been buying shrimp all week to offer as an alternative.

At the first stop, one of the first baits Patricia put into the water was consumed by a large snook which quickly ran against the drag right straight into the mangrove roots and cut the line. I hate when that happens. I hadn't even had a chance to coach Patricia on what to do with a running snook. We only caught one other snook there, and that was it for the snook for the day.

We fished hard, and covered a lot of ground, and by the end of the trip Tim and Patricia had caught 1 founder, 1 sheephead, 1 jack crevalle, and a dozen or so trout. I felt bad for Tim, because I figured he had great expectations for our southwest Florida fishing, which is usually great. I promised to put him on lots of snook if he could ever get over during the warm months.

That was it for the week. The irony of this report is that the only reason I've been able to get it done today is that we got rained out this morning. I had a fly fishing trip scheduled with Greg Pershbacker. As I drove to the ramp this morning I was greeted by lots of lightning on the western horizon, and I knew it probably wouldn't happen. It's now afternoon, and it's been drizzling all morning. We'll try again tomorrow. It will probably be more of the same.