About three weeks after my first trip to Suwannee, Florida, I get a call on Thursday night from the guide letting me know that the weather forecast is excellent for the coming weekend and, if I could, I should bring my boat down Saturday and plan on fishing in the afternoon since the tide was coming in then. Having nothing planned but “honey dos”, I told him that I would see him then.

Both kids, Randy, 12, and Suzanne, 8, loved to fish and my ex wife informed me she was going too, so a trip was on and we arrived in Suwannee at the only bait camp, showed the kids the “pet” Bass, bought some shrimp and checked with the proprietor about the status of the Manatees. No Manatees, so off we speed down the Suwannee River into the Gulf of Mexico.

We started fishing in 6 feet of beautiful, clear, green water and for the first 20 minutes didn’t have a hit, so I moved into 4 foot of water, but with much more grass on the bottom and, bingo, our first casts produced 2 nice Specks!

Kids are fun to fish with, wanting to closely check out each fish, touching the one or two big teeth in the Trout’s upper lip, and of course getting their fingers caught in the fish’s mouth, jerking back and finding the fish’s teeth firmly hold their fingers. Randy could bait up, cast and net fish. Suzanne was learning and now almost 30 years later both are accomplished “fisherpersons”.

Everyone caught fish and soon we had 30 nice Specks in the cooler. Since we were going to eat at the only restaurant in town, fresh caught Speckled Trout tonight on their menu, we headed in, cleaned and iced the fish down, cleaned the boat and made arrangements to store it in the very secure boat storage facility.

After cleaning up in our room in the only motel in town, we headed for the restaurant, which was extremely crowded. A 5 minute wait and in we go to be seated, and I see someone stand up, waving in our direction, the only fishing guide in town.

He is eating fish with his clients of the day and introduces me, as “This is the Texas guy I was telling you all about.” Continuing, “How did you do this afternoon?” And I replied, “We caught about 30 in 2 hours.” “See,” the Guide looks at his clients, “He ought to be guiding down here too! This fella’ can catch Specs!”

Sometimes a good day job can really interfere with your avocation