You have got to love a punctual fish. Just like clockwork, and just like the past five or six years that I’ve really been paying attention, the spinner sharks arrived in between Christmas and New Years. The first group of the “Brown Bombers” were spotted just up the coast only last Sunday, and two days later, many dark shapes were zipping out of the path of the boat as I ran down the beach. I could have just about done handsprings. However, a relentless procession watercraft of all makes and sizes, some I’m sure haven’t been wet in oh, say twelve months to the day, made the opening season action, well, not so good. The fact that the offshore action on sailfish, ( some of which in the recent couple of weeks had been spectacular ), dolphin and kings was just about nil, left many more anglers than usual working the inshore waters. We did manage one spinner to the boat on New Year’s Eve, and though we had several lookers today, none would commit to a dance. I’m sure that will change shortly. Other than that, the normal menu of bluefish, jacks, ladyfish, pompano and runners have been providing fairly reliable action. The original school of jacks that had moved into the inlet some weeks backs,( a mass I’d guess to be several thousand strong) must have gotten tired of the bull sharks, bottlenose porpoise, cudas, commercial fishermen and everyone else harassing them. They moved out to parts, ( somewhat ) , unknown. There will probably be a replacement school along shortly, hopefully fish too big for any of the aforementioned, ( except for masocistic fly anglers ), to mess with. So, now that everyone that is supposed to be here has arrived, let the beatings begin, (and not necessarily only that of fish). All that remains is some cooperative weather to let us get some damage done