Frustrating, isn’t it, when you’re counting on a day on the water and the weather doesn’t cooperate? How many times have you planned a weekend boating or fishing trip at midweek, when the weather forecast for the weekend looked great, only to have that trip ruined by high winds or rain or both when the weekend rolls around? Don’t blame the weather service. The meteorologists who make those forecasts are doing the best they can to solve an immensely complex riddle that is the weather. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. ...

Tenacity—the willingness and fortitude to stay with a task until it is completed—is both a blessing and a curse of the fisherman.  I suppose that’s why we keep going back again and again, whether it’s trolling all day offshore in hopes of connecting up with a dolphin, tuna or sailfish, or why we spend hour after countless hour casting lures for trout, snook and redfish. When do you just call it quits and go home? As I get older I find that, while I still have the willingness to stay on the water until I catch something, I don’t have as much fortitude as I once did. ...

Have fuel prices affected your fishing or boating plans? It stands to reason that higher fuel prices combined with an economic slump would take a toll on fishing and boating and there’s growing evidence of that, almost all anecdotal. I’ve seen reports from areas of concentrated fishing—the lower Keys, for instance—that there are fewer boats on the water this year than last. The head boats aren’t going out every day like they used to. ...

So both I and my friend Bill have our boats up for sale. He’s serious, I’m sorta not. If Bill sells his boat, he’ll buy another, bigger one. ...

A west wind makes for calm seas on Florida’s east coast. In the middle of what passes for winter in the state that means pompano patrol! Jack and I hit the beach before dawn, mostly because Jack has a theory that fish don’t bite during the day. Never mind the thousands of fish I’ve caught in the middle of the day. ...

Anybody who does much sailing knows how expensive the sport is. Never has so much been spent to go anywhere so slowly. But my friend George has solved the expense problem. ...

While making my annual pilgrimage to the Miami Boat Show last week, I managed to grab a few minutes with Thom Dammrich, the president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association.  The great thing about folks like Thom is that they can put some hard numbers to perceptions we have about things like the health of the boating industry. While the Miami show is always glittering and glamorous, the impressions I had before strolling through the Miami Convention Center were mostly that boating was taking a whack from the souring economy. ...

Targeting snook for the dinner table is an exercise in frustration. Sure, they’re one of the tastiest fish that swims in Florida waters, with a firm white flesh that flakes beautifully. The problem is catching one that you can keep. ...

You may have seen them art shows or at upscale fishing tackle shops: prints of real fish matted and framed as art. They’re very attractive, not at all like the splashy art of sailfish ripping up schools of bait fish that are suitable only for a basement or den. This is subtle, sophisticated art. ...