The morning started off a little rough with the scaled sardines not where I have been getting them so I had to switch game plans with the clock clicking away.

The next best thing was some nice 3 1/2 - 4 inch threadfins that I loaded up on.Armed with threads,shrimp and gulp I picked up my customers Bill and his step son.

The game plan was to fish some rock piles and artificial reefs in the bay near Gandy until the tide came in and then we were gonna hit the flats.The key on the flats is to find dark bottom areas near deeper water canals or cuts and the fish will move up on to them as they warm up.Free lined threadfins and scaled sardines has been real successful since the flats have not had much bait on them.Its like bringing candy to a kindergarten class and throwing m&m packs in the room they just go nuts.

The set up was 10 lb Stealth braid and 30 lb flouro leader.We went to the reefs first and they caught a variety of fish from mangrove snapper,lane snapper and some sea bass.

then it was time to move on to the main attraction.We got to the area and the water was still a bit to low to get to were I wanted to fish.So we set up outside the bar and fished for 15- 20 min with one hit and a miss so I couldn't wait any longer so I started trolling as far as I could until the boat just wouldn't budge anymore.I needed another 20-30 feet and we would be good to go.So I jumped out of the boat and lifted and pushed until we were good.I jumped back in, got on the troller and started trolling in when I see a nice snook so I drop anchor and the fish are stacked up.Last trip it took a good hour to get on them this trip first stop and I never had to pull anchor.I threw some chummers out and five explosions went off almost at the same time like cannons going off and boy did these guys eyes light up and they couldn't cast fast enough.They had caught reds before but they never experienced snook before.They caught alot of snook and really enjoyed watching them blow up on baits.They said they will be back for the Tarpon season so I look forward to putting them on their first tarpon also.Here are some pics of the day.It was a great way to end the year.