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Quiet, activity off, that’s putting it mildly!

Remember the great movie “On The Beach” and the trademark scene where the submarine approaches the West Coast after the nuclear holocaust, puts up its periscope and finds nothing? Not a blessed thing moving.

That’s what it’s been like on the few backwater charters we’ve been running the past couple of weeks. We don’t see another boat for hours on end. Scary!

But, as fate would have it, the total lack of fishing pressure has turned the fish ravenous and the fishing has been excellent. Snapper, redfish, snook, black drum, you name it, are providing some fantastic light tackle fishing.

I happened to mention this fact to one of the neighbors whose been bugging me to “show him the good spots” for years.

“Well come on,” chortled Adam. “Let’s do it. We’ll take my boat and just do a couple of hours — good opportunity. Whata ya say?”

I couldn’t excuse my way out this time so we set a date for later in the week. We’d go early and launch his boat from the 951 Boat Ramp.

Gotta know a little bit about Adam. He’s a transplant retiree from the environments of the Big Apple. Knows everything about everything and has a personality and drive that would make Dick Vitale, the college basketball analyst, look like your local undertaker. He is strung tighter than a guy wire.

It was still dark when he pulled into my driveway and blew the horn much to the chagrin of wife and neighbors. But that’s Adam’s way!

We were the first one’s at the boat ramp. Adam never wanted to be second at anything. He swung the truck to place the boat at the top of the launch ramp and proceeded to scurry to and fro like a water bug on steroids — unhooking this, untying that... I asked if I could help and got a wave off. He spouted that he always handed the launch by himself. He’d have the boat in the water in just a minute or so.

He jumped in the truck; slammed it into reverse and took off down the ramp. He shouted to me, “Grab the line when the boat comes free.” He was too much in a hurry to hear me say “What line?” as the boat surged off the trailer and into the waterway — free as a bird. In his hyper-haste he forgot to tie the tag line to a bow cleat.

There went the boat floating toward the mangroves on the other side of the waterway and starting to move seaward with the outgoing tide. Adam was coming unglued and frantic.

“I’ll swim over there,” he said as he started to remove shoes and trousers.

“Not a good idea. You don’t have a vest and this tide is strong and anyway, how are you going to pull yourself aboard?”

He put his trousers and shoes back on.

Just then a couple of youngsters shooting for some early morning snook action with a little 14-feet skill pulled into the lot and Adam was on them like syrup on hotcakes. They launched quickly and had Adam’s wayward boat back at the siding in less than 10 minutes.

Well, so much for the “power launch.”

It was time to do what we came for and that was to go fishing. Now remember, the basic objective of this trip was to show Adam the “hot spots” to improve his fishing results.

So off we went, with Adam at the helm of the modified flats boat and me hanging on and shouting directions.

Our first stop was in a beautiful tidal creek that was usually teaming with fish transiting between the ultra shallow back bays and the river and Gulf of Mexico.

It had always been a great spot for me holding nice snapper and trout in the summer; redfish and black drum in the fall and big sheepshead in the winter. We expected good things this morning.

We rounded a bend and the outgoing tidal flow was obvious swirling around the immersed limbs and foliage at the water’s edge. We found what we were looking for on Adam’s fish finder — a distinctive drop off that fell 8-10 feet giving a subterranean ambush point for the guys we were looking for.

We set the anchor and dropped back so our lines would be tickling the base of the upswept formation.

“OK, Adam, we’re here right on our structure. Let’s get with it”

Adam, puzzled, just looked around and chortled, “What structure? I don’t see anything sticking out of the water.”

I just took a deep breath.

“Adam, let’s get fishing and I’ll explain as we go.”

We set up with nice frisky shrimp on circle hooks tied to a hank of fluorocarbon leader weighted with a split shot and let our two lines go into the swirling tidal pool. The baits made a circle in the pool and then descended nicely into the depths.

We tossed a few departed shrimp into the current forward of the boat as a chum enticement to get things started.

Adam was noticeably agitated and when asked what was wrong, he answered, “So, where are the fish?” We had been there a grand total of four minutes!

“Adam, you’ve got to have patience. The fish are there; they will be attracted to the motion and odor of the shrimp and move to the bait. But that takes ten minutes or so to set some solid action.”

That dissertation went in one ear and out the other. Adam, literally could not stand still.

We eventually caught some nice snapper and a small black drum on that spot a few of which Adam boxed for dinner. Thankfully, the balance were released.

Next stop was one of Adam’s spots. I wanted to see why his prior fishing exploits had been so disappointing to him.

We roared up the main channel of Addison Bay and then pulled off on at slow speed and went dead south into the shallow waters and way off the main moving current of the Bay.

We ducked around mangrove islands and finally Adam cut the engine and grabbed for the anchor.

We were in three feet of dead water on a unremarkable mangrove edge.

“Catch many fish here, Adam?” was a set up inquiry. This spot held no potential.

“Not many. Just one or two once in awhile,” he soulfully replied.

I explained the moving water thing and how, if he wanted to fish an area like this, he should have an electric trolling motor and work casts all along the edges.

It was like I was speaking Greek. It was now pretty obvious that Adam’s fishing problem wasn’t knowing “spots” — it was lack of basic fishing knowledge and patience.

We finished our adventure with me recommending that he look into taking some fishing classes at our community college and maybe even joining a local fishing club.

He was jotting notes down furiously.

“Anything else you can think of?” he finished.

“Yeah, Adam, maybe a mild tranquilizer.” He jotted that down.

Capt. Bill Walsh owns an established Marco Island charter fishing business and holds a current U.S. Coast Guard license. Send comments or questions to dawnpatrolcharters@compuserve.com