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TERRY TOMALINYou never know what to expect with linesiders. Sometimes they'll just circle and stare at your bait; other times, "pop," they're on it.
TIERRA VERDE - Angling is a lot like surfing. Both require patience. Fish, like waves, do not appear on cue.
If you plan to pursue either sport with passion, you better get used to the phrase, "You should have been here yesterday."
The waves were always bigger, the fish always hungrier the day before you got there.
"I'm serious," Doug Hemmer said. "We caught a fish on every bait."
Fishing the passes for summer snook is usually hit or miss. You can plan for the tide, pick your spot, prepare your bait, but if the fish don't want to participate, you might as well pack up and go on a picnic.
On this particular summer afternoon, we pulled up to a deserted stretch of beach in the Fort De Soto area and hopped out to wade the shoreline.
The snook, still holding in their summer spawn pattern, moved along the swash channel that led to open water of the Gulf of Mexico.
Hemmer, who tries to fish the beaches every afternoon until the thunderstorms chase him back to port, stood on the deck of his flats skiff and scanned the shallows for shadows.
"I can see a few fish," he said. "But I haven't spotted the big school. I know they are here."
One hundred yards down the beach, a family in a bowrider pulled their boat up on the sand and hopped out. They lingered for a few minutes, then climbed back and fired up the motor.
"That will either spook the fish that are here or send the ones down there moving our way," Hemmer said. "Either way, we can't do any worse than we are right now."
Snook are funny that way. You can plop the perfect bait in the middle of a pod of fish and they will just circle around and stare. But wait an hour, after the tide has picked up speed, and the same bait wouldn't last a minute before it was gobbled up by a ravenous linesider.
The trouble is, there is no way to predict when fish will start feeding.
Fishing guides often will tell you, "They (the fish) are about to turn on," and the guides may base that statement on the predicted tidal flow, the solunar tables, the rise and setting of the sun and/or moon, historic feeding patterns or even a dream they had the night before.
But the truth is, guides don't know when the fish will start biting anymore than they know who will win Saturday night's Lotto jackpot.
"The fish will turn on here any minute," Hemmer said, tossing a few baits in the water. "It is going to happen."
Hemmer scanned the surface for signs of feeding fish, but didn't like what he saw. So he checked his watch - the tide would soon stop running. He had to make a decision.
"Time for Plan B," Hemmer told his anglers. "We have to make a move."
He motored around the island and found boats on his second spot. He watched for a minute and evaluated the situation.
"Only two of those boats are fishing," he told his friends. "I think we can slip in there and catch some fish."
The tide was now moving at a generous pace. Hemmer knew it would flush bait off the grass flats and into the mouths of the waiting snook.
He grabbed a handful of scaled sardines and threw them upcurrent. The snook answered with the distinctive "pop!" of a feeding fish.
It took less than a minute for the angler on the bow and the angler on the stern to hook fish. Hemmer grabbed another handful of baitfish and tossed them across the flat.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
"I told you," Hemmer said. "Just like yesterday."