Packards

As you may have heard, loudly and from me, this winter has been the worst in most Floridians' memories for fishing. Ed Walker and I went out once between December 13 and yesterday, and even that was a disaster. Barbara and I attended Ed's beautiful wedding February 10 and sat at a table with fishy people......they couldn't WAIT for the water to warm up.
Well, the water has warmed up, 72 degrees yesterday, and the fish have warmed up as well. A "Flats Grand Slam" consists of catching a legal size Speckled Trout, Redfish, and Snook on the same day. Add a Cobia, and you have a "Flats Super Grand Slam". Yesterday was that kind of a day. We started off catching Specks - stopped counting at 20 - in the 2 -3.5# range that in December or January would have been the highlight of the day. Yesterday they were "pesky" because we were after other game....On our way to the Snook hole Ed spotted a Cobia, we chased it, hooked it, landed and released it: 13#. Next came fast and furious Snook action, tasty 8-pounders, capped off with an 8# Redfish in the wrong place at the right time. Adding to the fun were about ten Crevalle Jacks, one of which was 10# and took 15 minutes to boat: they are very, VERY strong fish.

So this morning I am sore but happy. As usual we got some photos, including one where the Snook I invited to dinner almost slipped through a crack. The big brown one is the Cobia, the other two are the Redfish and Snook. We never took a trout picture because we were too busy fishing. Here they are:

The Happy Fisherman (3/1/01)

These are from April 30 - May 1, 2001 on the Susquehanna River; two small Smallmouth Bass not worthy of mention. The first one I guess we took because I was using an "antique" bamboo rod which is pictured, the other is just a fish [but a cute smile -ed.]