That's what my clients were this weekend. They were Super Troopers. I knew the weather was going to be a little windy but the weather report had forecasted the weather (when I read it the night before) to have the winds calm down a little as the day went on. I figured, worst case scenario, that we could spend all day fishing the Little Manatee River. It had been holding plenty of snook and a few redfish. When I rolled up to the ramp early in the morning though, a stiff, cold, wind cut through my long sleeve tee-shirt. Ouch... looked like we would be in the river all day. Which was fine to me. It just limited us to one particular area and would prevent us from fishing any of the Cockroach Bay area or the Piney Point area, which are both holding reds and snook right now.

So I dropped the boat in the water at Simmons park and hit the edge of a flat nearby where I'd been catching bait for about 1 week and 1/2. The birds weren't diving today so that had me worried. The first throw of the net yielded 3 net shredding catfish. Not a great start to the morning. A few more throws and I didn't have much to show for my efforts. I decided to make one more throw before heading out into the chop to find other bait spots and "bang", I hit the greenies. I started chumming harder and it wasn't long before I filled 2 live wells with greenbacks.

So I headed back to the ramp to pick up Kerry, Cody, and Kim. They seemed excited to be there and were all smiles. That's what I like to see. Little did I know what troopers they would truly turn out to be later in the day.

I told them that the wind hadn't died down like I had hoped but that we would have a safe, fun, day fishing the river anyway. So off we headed to the railroad trestle near HWY 41 where good reports of snook had been relayed to me by a few of my fellow guide buddies. We didn't do too well there but a friend of mine, Capt. Greg McCullough caught a few dink snook at the other end of the trestle. From there we proceeded to work our way back to the mouth of the river, hitting several points and cuts along the way. We managed hooking up on a couple of small redfish and a nice jack. When we got back near the mouth of the river, we stopped and fished under some sailboats where I had been freight trained by some monster snook earlier in the week. I hit this spot a little late this day and the tide was barely moving. We tried throwing greenbacks, pinfish, and even mullet up under the sailboats but we didn't get a hit. However, the wind seemed to be dieing just like the tide at this point. I had the bright idea that we could head out to the flats to the South for some trout while the tide was dead and then follow the water up to the shoreline as it rose.

Off we went. There was a mild chop on the water on the way down and I was excited to not have to be confined to the river which had produced only a few fish. When we got to the flat where I had caught over thirty trout a few days earlier, I thought the catching would commence. Man I was wrong. We tried that for an hour without a bite except from a few catfish. I did see several upper slot snook however but couldn't coax a bite. I decided to head further South to the spoil island in search of some redfish. An hour of that and we couldn't find them either. Time to head back North and see if the tide had come in enough to hit some redfish spots near Cockroach.

When we came around the spoil Island I knew we were in for it. The wind had picked back up out of the North and I was oblivious to it to this point (because the spoil Island had blocked us from it). I knew it was going to be a long, rough, wet, ride back. And it was. I never, ever, like getting my clients wet. I was really dreading this run and worried about how they might feel about me getting them wet. To my surprise, they were all smiles the whole way back and when I got back to the calmer waters of the river, with all of us drenched, I apologized. They just looked at me and said, "Hey, we own boats back home. It's part of fishing and we're having a great time." Wow, you don't know how those words made me feel. I want all of my clients to have a great time, catch lots of fish, and feel like I treated them like V.I.P.'s. When a day goes the way this one had it really gets to me and for them to say they were having a great time really lifted my spirits. We decided to hit a few more spots in the river before heading in and we managed just a few more bites from a few smaller snook and ladyfish. Nothing huge but at least we finished by getting a few more bites.

This isn't as much a fishing report as it is a blog note and a thank you note today. I want to hit a home run every trip but sometimes it just doesn't work out like that. It makes it all the more enjoyable when you have such "Super Troopers" on the boat as I did with Kerry, Cody, and Kim. Thanks guys for chartering me and being such an awesome group of people. You're welcome on my boat any time.