With all the news on T.V. about the oil in the Gulf of Mexico it has been very discouraging for me as a charter fisherman who loves being on the water, but I am trying to stay positive and get fired up about the great fishing we are having here in Southwest Florida right now. It was a very long winter and windy spring, so the fishing guides have earned a little good weather and great fishing in my opinion. The Tarpon have been flooding into the area through Pine Island Sounds and large hungry schools have been a our target fish for the last couple weeks. In the meantime while the fishing here in Boca has been picking up the fishing to our south has been above average as well. One of the highlights in the Everglades this past month has been the number of Snook. I have been fishing on the weekends for Snook and Tarpon in the Everglades and we have had some crazy action. Last Sunday after a long day, doing battle with the Tarpon on the fly rod we switched over to the Snook fishing. We hooked up with three very large Snook and managed to land a monster. It was 42 inches and 28 lbs. I watched as my angler hooked and brought the mighty Snook along side the flats boat, for release. To see these Snook in such good numbers and now starting off what looks like it will be an awesome Tarpon season I am very happy to see mother nature bounce back. While fishing the waters of Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts during the summer of 2003 I patiently watched the clean up project after the "Bouchard Transportation Company" oil tanker ran aground and a large amount of heavy crude oil spilled into the waters I have fished since I was able to crawl. It was a long slow process and there is still evidence of the spill in a few places today, but we were very lucky it did not destroy the fishing completely. The people of the Gulf states are now bracing for a similar disaster and I can only hope that the pristine waters and fish in our habitat are spared.
