The first trip of the week belonged to Terry Gump, a basic electronics teacher from Spencer, West Virginia, and his 17 year old son Josh, and 15 year old son Seth. I try to avoid working Sundays, but Terry had booked three days back in March, which included Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday of this week. This was the first snook outing for the trio. Bait was plentiful at Keesel's flat, and we were out on the Stickbeach by 7:30 AM. We had lots of thunderstorms rumbling just offshore, but they stayed there and didn't move much until later in the day. It was a beautiful day for the Stickbeach. The action was good. These boys had never tangled with fish like these on light tackle. Right out of the box Josh hooked a huge redfish. If I remember correctly it was 35 inches long and 12 pounds. Maybe bigger! He caught a number of nice fish through the morning. Terry hooked and landed lots of beautiful snook, including a 12 pounder, a 10, a couple of 9's, and 8's as I recall. He didn't catch much of anything under 8 pounds. Seth hooked and lost fish after fish all morning long, and by day's end had boated only one snook. The Gumps were a quiet bunch other than Terry commenting on his surprise at how big the fish were. I sensed something wasn't right. Back at the dock Terry indicated that he thought I'd been a little tough with my coaching of his boys, but that it hadn't bothered him. After all, he had a bunch of nice fish in the boat. I told he could pay me after all the trips were run, but he insisted on paying me then. Then he said he'd see me Tuesday morning unless I heard from them. "Heard from them"? What was that supposed to mean. Well, I'm no rocket scientist, but that sounded to me like a decision had already been made to cancel the rest of his trips. We shall see.
You know, I think there's something that needs saying here. There are three kinds of guides. There are guides that will sit in the back of the boat and let you do your own thing, even if you're loosing fish after fish. There are guides that expect you to be an expert angler no matter what, and will hollar, scream, and shout at you for missing a fish. There are instructional guides like myself who will try to quickly access your angling skills as they apply to our brand of fishing, and then give you the coaching you need to help you be as successful as possible at putting fish in the boat with minimum damage to his equipment. Now that last part may sound funny, but think about it for a minute. If an angler keeps reeling against the drag on a big fish, two things are guaranteed to happen. First, the line will become so twisted as to render it useless for the rest of the trip, and will require replacement. Line is expensive and takes time to spool up. Second, the angler will destroy the ring and pinion gears in the reel if he is not stopped. I give my customers expensive equipment to use, and I'm not about to stand there and watch a customer ruin the line or damage a reel through misuse. If the customer won't heed my verbal promptings, I will physically stop him, and explain in the middle of the battle, what he's doing incorrectly. I will keep on that customer until he does it right. My equipment and his fish are at stake. I just had to rebuild a brand new Shimano Stradic 4000 because a customer tried to winch a big fish in with it, intead of pumping and reeling properly with the rod, while I was trying to revive a fish. I didn't see it happening, and wasn't there to stop it, and as a result a reel was ruined. As the client, you can't possibly expect me or any other guide who cares about your success or his equipment to just stand back and let you keep losing fish or tearing up equipment. There are many other examples I could site. Bait, for instance. Anyone who has fished with me knows I will nag you until you instinctively put that bait in the water and keep it there until you're ready to cast. Why? Shiners are majic bait, if, and only if they're fresh and frisky. They're extremely fragile. If you let him dangle on the end of your line while you're messing around with the reel and thinking about where you're going to cast, your bait will be half dead by the time you cast. Result; it won't be eaten by the intended victim. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I always assure me customers that any critisims I offer are strictly constructive in nature. I don't expect you to be an expert when you show up, but I do expect you to be willing to listen to my instructions and learn, ultimately greatly improving your angling skills. We only have a few hours to achieve sucess for our clients. Please don't mistake your guide's enthusiasm and coaching as some kind of personal thing. I only offer coaching where I see that it's needed. Believe it or not, there are folks that don't need the first bit of coaching. But, they've likely been playing this game for a while, and have lots of experience under their belts. Enough said.
Where Sunday had been a day of lots of fish biting, but not that many to the boat, Monday was somewhat of a paradox in that there was a very slow bite everywhere, but the fish were great. Bill Alexander, an architech of Orlando, Florida, was back over to try his luck with his friend Stephen Daniels. Bill had been rained out on his first attempt to fish with me, and we were concerned that the same thing could happen again. As I drove to the ramp that morning I could see lightning in the distance and the tops of thunderstorms that were forming just off the coast. I felt like I knew Bill already, as we'd been talking on the email for some time. I really wanted for this to be a great trip for him, but it turned into a strange day. The first problem we had was bait. I got a little at Keesels, but it never ganged up like it should have so I could catch plenty. I ran up to Flamingo at the uring of Capt. Maxie Stanford, but found no bait there. Next I ran down to the Hump, but found no bait there, either. We finished back at Keesel's when I finally decided we couldn't afford to waste any more time on bait. It was already past eight o'clock, and I was worried that we were missing the best part of the early morning bite. Once we were set up at the Stickbeach I realized it would be a tough day. The first baits that went into the water were ignored. So were the second and third baits. Damn! Something seemed to have the fish shut down. Bill missed one hit. Shortly afterward all hell broke loose at the end of Stephen's line. We all knew it was a trophy fish. It was burning drag on the 17 pound rig, and it was all Stephen could do to hold on. I went into the extreme coaching mode, because I knew Stephen had never even caught a snook before, and had no experience with fish like this on light tackle. He kept trying to winch against the full force of the fish with the reel. Bad news. It took a while to get Stephen past the shock of the initial adreneline rush, but he settled down and followed my lead. Stephen is a big boy, my size, and has plenty of muscle, but that fish absolutely wore him out. But, all the knots held, and Stephen finally wore her out, too, and brought her boatside. He was absolutely stunned. That beautiful snook weighted in at 21 pounds, and measured 41 inches. It was the biggest snook anyone has put in the boat in about four years. What a great way to start your snook fishing career! I knew the fish was beat up and would take a long time to revive, but I was determined not to loose another fish like we had done the day before. It took a good hour and a half of Stephen and I working on her, but I finally watched her swim slowly away, almost as if she couldn't believe she had regained her freedom. The Shimano Symetre 4000 he kept winching her with didn't fare as well. The gears are ruined. Meanwhile, Bill had tangled with another monster that eventually turned and ran out to sea. We didn't get to see that fish, but it had to be either another monster snook, or one of those 35 to 40 inch redfish we've been catching out there. It was making a long run more like a big snook when the hook pulled. That seemed to set the tone for Bill's luck for the rest of the day. He had a hell of a time keeping a fish hooked. Stephen managed to catch a few fish on the Stickbeach, but the bite was extremebly slow. So, as soon as we had Godzilla snook revived we left the beach and headed for the flats. The bite wasn't much better there. Whatever it was that was affecting the bite seemed to be shutting the fish off everywhere. We did catch a few fish, though, and Bill managed to boat several snook and a trout. Bill also tangled with another monster in the shallows of the flats, with the same ultimate result. The big fish took off for parts unknown. I was considering going for the anchor, when the hook pulled. Geez!! Poor ole Bill seemed to have a cloud of bad luck hanging over him. I moved to another area that I was pretty sure would give us some redfish. Shortly after the first baits went out, Stephen and I got nailed at the same time. As we both fought our fish, it became apparent that we might be fighting the same fish. I've actually had that happen twice before, once with a big redfish, and once with a big snook. Sure as heck, we had both hooked the same redfish, and she had clearly eaten both baits; this was no accident. We decided we'd better end the day on that note, as we were almost out of bait, and the weather was beginning to threaten. I was concerned that the big thunderboomers would brew before we could get safely back to the ramp if we waited much longer. So, you see, it was a strange day of slow action, world class fish, and lots of get-aways. We had lots of fun, though. Stephen will be talking about his first snook for as long as he lives, and Bill, who is an experience angler with lots of notches on his rod handle, may be wondering for just as long why he couldn't keep a fish hooked. But they vowed to be back to try again. I think Stephen is officially infected with "Snook Fever"!
Monday night my wife called and said that Terry Gump's wife had called and said they wouldn't be fishing Tuesday or Thursday because he was very sick! I thought the worse at first. I later called the office and played the messages. There was a second message from Terry's wife Susan, who was very apologetic, saying that Terry had diabetes among other health problems, and that she thought that the first outing, exercise and soforth, may have been too much for him, and that they may have to go home early to seek medical attention. Terry, if you read this, I'm sorry you didn't get to finish out your trips, and sincerely hope that you are well.
With Tuesday and Thursday a bust, I was sure looking forward to getting a good trip in Wednesday. The first thing I did at 4:00 AM Wednesday morning was check the radar on my computer through blind eyes. I thought they were lying to me. The whole southern tip of the state was covered with rain and thunderstorms that appeared to be heading our direction. The line was about 30 miles south of Sanibel. Damn, not again!! Melvin Young and his two brothers-out-law, P.J. and Tony, were here from Indiana and just Jonesin' to get out and do some serious fishin. I got everything ready and headed for the ramp, knowing full well that it would probably be an exercise in futility. As I stopped at the 7-Eleven for gas, the winds kicked seriously and it started raining sideways. Not a good sign! I arrived at the Punta Rassa ramp to find everyone standing around wondering how this could be. Capt. John Eaton had just come in through the darkness and had come dangerously close to what could only be a waterspout, which had actually damaged his boat. That's close. One by one, we all cancelled and did what rescheduling we could.
Thursday dawn broke clear as a bell with a southeast wind and 15 knots. We arrived at Keesel's flat and began chumming for shiners in the darkness. The first throw of the net proved quite exciting. As the net sank into the dark water it jerked tight on the rope. Whoa! I knew I'd thrown it over something mighty big, and couldn't get the rope off my left wrist quickly enough. I had visions of being jerked out of the boat by a porpoise, or something. I pulled. The net pulled back! I pulled again, and could see the outline of a fish of approximately 6 feet in lenght in the net. Suddenly, she realized she was in trouble, and the tarpon blew a four foot hole in the net as she rocketed away to freedom. I figured the southeast wind might make the Stickbeach pretty bumpy, and was running over Plan B, C, etc. in my head. After catching bait at Keesel's, I headed toward Blind Pass. As I approached the marked channel into the pass, I noticed birds working on the flat, and lots of topwater pops on bait. It was a huge area of activity, and just too much to pass up. I figured it was either jack crevalle or ladyfish. Well, it turned out to be jacks, ladyfish, and trout. Melvin, P.J. and Tony caught fish after fish for the better part of three hours. They caught loads of trout, jack crevalle, and a few mangrove snappers, including a couple of keepers. When the action finally subsided, we headed to a different flat to catch some redfish. We had a nice stringer of trout and snapper. On the redfish flat I did some serious chumming with the shiners, and got some action going there. The boys put two nice reds in the boat, but missed about half a dozen or more, as I recall. They were happy, they had a nice load of fish to feed the gang with, and had caught tons of fish. I had thoroughly enjoyed the day with these three guys.
Friday, broke looking much like Thursday. Bob Moreno and his son Mike were ready to go try their luck with their friends Paul Rafferty and his son Ross. Knowing how jack crevalle behave, I figured they would be right back on that same flat on the same stage of the tide, doing "big jack attacks" on the bait there. I was right. We started the morning off with lots of jack and trout action. The fearsome foursome caught jack after jack, as well as a snapper, and half dozen or so trout. Once the bite slowed on the flat, I decided to venture out onto the Stickbeach. It wasn't as bumpy as I though it would be, and the boys managed to put half dozen or so snook in the boat. Bob was really wanting to put a redfish in the boat, so I went back inside for the last hour or less of the trip, and did some chumming. It only took a couple of minutes to bag the first 25 inch redfish, and Bob was thrilled at how it pulled. We couldn't get any others to eat before it was time to take it home, but we had a pretty good day overall. Bob, Paul, and the boys were great guys, and I look forward to fishing with them again.
Considering how the week could have gone, it turned out to be a pretty
good week. I'm sorry Terry Gump had to miss all that Thursday action. I
know he and his boys would have really enjoyed the nonstop excitement.