Actually, the two day week was a fantastic one, as it was a week of renewing an old friendship with Roger Barrey, of the United Kingdom, whom I fished with for four days back in June of 1998! We had a blast back then, and Roger caught tons of snook to 16 pounds, as well as lots of redfish. I've never forgotten him and the fun we had, even though at this point I didn't think I'd ever see him again. Although thrilled with the prospects of spending a couple of days with him after almost twelve years, I was disappointed that he was coming on the heels of the worst winter in southwest Florida since they've been keeping records. Of course, I let Roger know the prospects, hoping that by the time he actually got here to fish things would be on the mend. But, they weren't. But, Roger, being the avid angler and great sport that he is, still wanted to fish both days. One thing was different, too. Roger was bringing his twelve year old son, James.
Our first day was Tuesday. Bait reports were grim, and most everyone was still fishing with shrimp or artificials. I talked to any number of friends who'd tried to get bait, but failed all together, or only got a few pieces. Rumor was it was beginning to show up at the Brown House.
I recognized Roger as he approached the dock in the near dark of a new dawning day. He hadn't changed the first bit, and was wearing his great smile that I remembered so well. He was a fun guy back then, and I knew instinctively he hadn't changed.
We headed up the river and down Miserable Mile to the Brown House flats. There were two boats there, one of which was John Objartle. John gave me the visual of the hand across the throat, telling me there was no bait. I stopped for a minute to chat and verify. He'd gotten nothing but pinfish. No shiners. Neither had the other guide. I told him I was going to go work the Tarpon Bay flats over, and see if I could come up with bait. I had not bought shrimp. It was bait or plastic.
Once on the Tarpon Bay flat, we were quickly set up and chumming. This would be the first time using my new Daddy Pat 10 ft. net, that weights in at the same weight as my 8 ft. Daddy Pat net that I've used for years, now. I got things started with the chumming just to see what the current and breeze were dong to the flow of the chum. Then, I turned it over to Roger.
The water was very cloudy, and in four feet you could not see the bottom. I realized when I made the first throw that it was so cloudy that I didn't realize that I had bait in the net until the lead line was almost at the surface. Suddenly, there was the sparkling of whitebait. Man, I was happy to see that! After three throws we were loaded up, and I called John to let him know I was on bait. He said he'd be right there. Meanwhile, ballyhoo had showed up, and were making their little surface pushes about 1.3 casts away. I threw one more time, keeping the net right above the surface of the water right to the end of the rope. I didn't think I'd made it to them, but when I finally got to the last few inches of the net, there were several ballyhoo in it. We were now armed with plenty of shiners and pinfish, as well as ballys and lures. Surely, we'd be able to get something going.
We headed to the first stop of the day, where reality immediately began to set in. It is a large pothole that is great fishing during winter and early spring for a whole host of fish, and it was nearly full to the top with seaweed from end to end like a giant can of spinach. It was all but impossible to fish with a prospect of catching something. We tried to make it work, but it didn't. We moved on within a half hour or so.
Our next stop was a bit better, but certainly not what I expected. We'd had so much wind for several days prior, and it was blowing pretty good already, that the tide was well behind schedule turning from outgoing to incoming. It was almost two hours late before it was over. We fished our spot hard because I knew the fish were there, and James struck first blood with a mangrove snapper that was just a tad short of keeping size. But, he had gotten the smell of the skunk out of the boat!
A short time later, Roger struck second blood with a snook. It wasn't a big one by any means, but by golly it was the first snook in the boat in 2010! James boated a nice speckled trout, and then later missed a snook or two. Even so, we were 2/3's of the way to a SLAM. I could just taste a redfish and the SLAM!
We set out to catch a redfish. We had a potpourri to offer them, including ballyhoo, which they love. But, after hitting several spots that I most always give up plenty of redfish, we had nothing to show for our efforts but a catfish. It was time for lunch.
We headed to the Waterfront Restaurant, where we spend the next hour and a half enjoying a fantastic lunch and talking stories, as they say in Hawaii. Finally, we were ready to go out and give it another try. The wind was howling pretty good, and we decided to keep our spots close to home.
At our first two stops we had quite a few shiners scaled, as only snook can scale them. They were beginning to show interest, but would not eat. In fact, you couldn't even feel the bait being scaled. Snook are notorious for than when they have a case of the persnicketys! We moved on.
We were now at what would be our last stop of the day. The first spot in the area gave us some more scaled shiners. A move about 1/8 of a mile put us in some deeper water with some of the strangest wind and current combinations I've ever encountered. It also put us in the birds. We were on fish, which was easily verified by the fact that the bait would come straight to the top of the water as the snook came to investigate, and the terns were right there to take them away from the snook. Talk about frustrating! Finally, as Roger and I were getting the boat ready for the short ride home, James hooked up a nice snook. We were thrilled for James, but the snook managed to get away before he got him to the boat. I explained to James that the Slack Monster had gotten him, as it always will if you let him.
And, that was the day. It had been a very long and very tough one as far as catching was concerned. But, Roger and James assured me they'd had lots of fun, as had I. I had told Roger earlier in the day that I understood if he and James didn't want to do the second trip we were scheduled for, given the very tough bite. We agreed to decide Wednesday evening after I gave them a fishing report for Wednesday.
Meantime, I moved my customer for Wednesday to April 15th, since he's here until mid-May, and didn't have a fishing report for Roger. But, he and James decided they still wanted to give Thursday a go, and go we did.
We met at the dock at 7:30 AM Thursday morning with renewed hope for a good bite. We headed right back to Tarpon Bay for bait, where you'd have thought we took a detour to the moon, things were so different. Now, there were boats everywhere trying to catch bait. And, we didn't see anyone catch any. We worked the flats there for two hours, and managed to catch maybe two dozen shiners, and a bunch of pinfish. The combination of wind and current were doing strange things, and frankly, I'm not sure we ever figured it out. I just couldn't believe things could be so different. We decided to head to the Brown House to try for bait since the tide was still not coming in. It didn't take long to figure out we weren't going to catch bait there, either. Actually, I'm pretty sure that by that point the bright daylight was working against us. After all, it was going on ten o'clock. We tossed the towel, and headed to the fishing grounds.
Our first stop was for big trout in the mouth of a creek. It's great spring trout fishing for the big ones, and they're usually there. But, we'd missed the best time to be there, which is on the last of the falling tide. It was coming in, already. James missed a couple, and finally landed a very nice trout, but that was it. We moved on to another spot to the north that is in Ding Darling.
We'd been there for perhaps twenty minutes when a guy in a Caroling Skiff made an approach. He announced as he got to us that he was going to anchor on my port side and fish. He did exactly that, which totally wrecked my plans for the spot, as he was anchored right where I was working along the shoreline toward. Worse, he made more clanging and banging noise than a walleye fisherman in an aluminum boat in a hundred feet of water. He caught one trout, and at that point I was wishing I had a large caliber weapon aboard. This guy needed some manners training!
It didn't take me long to pull anchor and leave. I figured that if I stayed there much longer I'd wind up in a confrontation. As we left the area Roger observed the guy was a total fecal-head, and that in the UK he would have been executed on the spot by a bunch of very aggravated anglers. I told him that he had indeed broken every rule of etiquette here, as well, and that there were still some old boys here that would take the same kind of vengeance. Roger was appalled that someone would actually come in on us and park right on us like that. My ultimate rule is that there are just some things you don't do with customers in the boat.
We stopped at a series of beautiful potholes I love to fish this time of year. They're usually full of lunker trout to 5 pounds. The last time I was there the holes were clean, and we caught. On this day the holes were full of tumbleweed, and all but unfishable. We moved on.
We stopped a some snook holes a mile or so away, but couldn't get anything more than a scaled bait. As I prepared to make another move, we discovered a large school of redfish in the very skinny water. There were several hundred fish in all. The school seemed to fragment itself into three smaller schools and surround us. Also, a porpoise came in to the flat via some slightly deeper water, and seemed to keep the fish from moving away from us.
As quickly as I could in my excitement, I tied on a gold spoon, and rigged a piece of cut pinfish. We already had shiner rigs ready. For the next hour or so we tossed everything we had at those fish, and time after time we put baits right on their noses. More than once they came right to us to the point that we were eyeball to eyeball. Do you think we ever got a take? Hell, no! Those fish just would not eat, or even settle down. But, it was fun trying, and watching them move all around us.
In our excitement and enthusiasm for those redfish, we'd whiled away a couple of hours without realizing it. We needed to move on and try to find a snook or red that would eat. At the next stop, a great snook and redfish spot, James caught a beautiful 5 pound trout. He was quite pleased with that fish. We also had a snook on, but lost it before it could be landed. We moved to another spot nearby, with no results, and then moved to a flat about a mile away. Shortly after landing there, a keeper redfish attacked a shiner shortly after it hit the water, and Roger boated it. We had an "Almost SLAM"!
It was time to call it a day, and go to lunch. We headed right back to the Waterfront Restaurant, where we enjoyed great food, and great chat about everything from the day's fishing to world politics. What fun! Finally, we headed home, and safely back at the ramp, said our "goodbyes". It had been a wonderful two days with Roger and James, in spite of the tough catching. And, like the first four days Roger and I spent together back in 1998, the memories of these two days with Roger and James will stay with me until my days are done.