In spite of a lot of windy days this was a good week of fishing. Brian and Tracy Kelly, of Norwood, MA, were first to try their luck. We had a northeast wind blowing at 15 mph +, which spells trouble for beach snook fishing. We gave it a try, but the swells were bad enough that Tracy soon began to get seasick. The snook weren't biting either, and given that, it wasn't worth getting someone sick. So, we went across the Sound to the calm waters of the flats where Brian and Tracy caught over 30 trout to 19" from a large pothole on the flat. They also caught 2 redfish to 30", and 3 snook to 23" fishing nearby mangrove keys. They also caught a large mangrove snapper, a ladyfish, and 2 jacks. All in all, a pretty good day.

The very next day I had a trip with Jim Spring and his good friend Roy from Columbia County, in north Florida. They had bought a trip I donated to their chapter of the Florida Conservation Association. The wind was from the northeast at about 10 mph, and we were able to fish our normal snook haunts. Jim and Roy caught over 30 snook to 25", and lost several large fish. After the morning bite stopped, we went across the Sound to hit some potholes, where we managed over 20 trout up to 18". They also got a small grouper and a couple of jacks. Jim and Roy were happy campers and promised to send me down some business

The following day I had David Cook, of Belfast, Ireland, out for a day of flyfishing. Dave is a world champion fly fisherman. I brought my good friend Capt. Mark Bess along to mate thinking we might both learn something from Dave. I also brought along conventional spinning tackle, and we stopped and castnetted a load of shiners just in case the fish didn't want to eat flies. The plan was to use the shiners to chum up the snook, then present the fly. Well, when Dave saw how the snook were hitting those shiners he decided he'd rather be catching with live bait, rather than waving the long rod. We got around 25 snook in the morning, then went and caught 15 trout later in the day. Dave was facinated with the size of our saltwater flies in comparison to what he's used to back home.

Last up was my old friend and fishing buddy Ted Sparling, of Sarasota. I wanted to look at some new spots in Sarasota Bay, and Ted said he had a couple of great spots he wanted to share with me. We found 4 big redfish in Buttonwood Harbor, along with 8 trout to 17", a 16' flounder, a large ladyfish, and 3 small grouper. Ted's hole didn't produce the redfish he promised, but we got there too late on the tide. We did get 2 huge jack crevalle that were lots of fun.

October brings the first of the lower winter tides and great pothole fishing, and I can't wait to get started. October is one of my favorite months.

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