I will try to remember everything that has gone on in the past month or so, some of the entertainment has been right off the scale. We’ll start with Scott and Lanette Singletons trip back in the first week of May. A while back I know, but one thirty minute segment was about as nutty as it gets, left us all laughing until our sides hurt. The Singletons weather was marginal for the four days that we fished, with the seas being a sloppy three to four foot, but with little going on inshore, we buckled down and headed offshore anyhow. The first day was spent warming up on runners and other assorted little stuff, Scott managed a twelve pound dolphin on his eight weight the second day, but the third day was where things got crazy. I managed to get a few albies coming up on dead glass minnows, fish in the six to eight pound range. Both of the Singleton’s were holding their eight weights, and I figured the eights would be fine on that size albie. I gave Lanette the go ahead, she dropped a cast in and sure enough, a twelve pounder came in from nowhere and pounds her fly. Just as the albie goes off on it’s run, here come two dolphin in the twenty pound plus range. I told Scott to lose the eight and grab a big rod. Well, Scott just drops the eight on the deck, line still stripped off of it and gets his twelve weight. He makes a nice cast right in front of the larger dolphin, only to have another big albie pick the fly off right from under the chin of the dolphin. So, I grab the only other big rod, a ten weight, and get a hook into the big dolphin. I hand the dolphin rod over to Scott and take the albie on the twelve weight off his hands. Now, that albie has headed to the front of the boat, taking me with it. Scott has followed the dolphin to the back of the boat where Lanette is fighting her albie. The chum is all in the back of the boat where I can’t get to it, and the second dolphin is still swimming around the boat. I figure I better do something about this or he’ll be leaving, and looking down, there’s the eight weight laying on the deck ready to cast and in a fit of temporary insanity, I pick it up one handed and make a cast at the second dolphin. Sure enough, I get a hook stuck in the fish and it goes off on a running, leaping sprint. For those of you not keeping count, this is now four fly rods, four fish, and three sets of hands doing the work. Lord I wish I had someone there in another boat filming this circus. Anyhow, in an effort to keep up with the dolphin that is just putting on a spectacular jumping show, I put the twelve wieght in my mouth,(along with all the glass minnow scales I had covered it with). The albie on it, up until that point, was being somewhat passive. Of course, when I brought my teeth into play, it decides it’s time to do a scorching run well into the two hundred yard range. I’m doing my best to stay focused on the dolphin, but my teeth being pulled out of my head is making this difficult. Anyhow, my dolphin jumps off right about this time, and about twenty seconds later, something eats the albie, (shark), whole. We can now get back to the other end of the boat with the Singleton’s,(remeber the Singleton’s?). Scott has done a fine job of keeping his dolphin fairly close, and Lanette is just putting the finishing touches on her albie. We get the albie in the boat and released, and just as I turn my attention to Scott’s dolphin, well, here come’s another dolphin about the same size. Another round of frantic activity ensues as I try to chum this new player into the mood to eat a fly, but he’s having none of it. More than likely, it’s the dolphin I jumped off. Anyhow, I spend enough time messing with this fish before I give up on it, that when it comes time to land Scott’s dolphin, as I’m trying to lead it into a net, the hook basically falls out and he swims off. I straighten up and look at the other two and we all just burst into hysterical laughter. It would have been nice to get the dolphin, but that would have just been frosting on a very tasty cake. Then the weather took a serious turn for the worse, almost three weeks of the windiest weather south Florida has seen in May. Winds stayed above twenty knots with gusts over thirty, making seas well into the “fugly” range. Almost noone was able to make it offshore, and the few that did found marginal fishing for their troubles. But the weather improved drastically last week, and the albie fishing has built into series of all out battles everyday. We had one day last week when the albies moved much further inshore than is normal for them, only a couple hundred yards off the beach in water depths of twenty to thirty feet. The nice thing about hooking albies in water that shallow, when they go off on thier run, there’s nowhere to go but out. And out, and out. I must have made some kind of impression on the Singletons though,(I’m not sure what kind of impression I could have made other than being some kind of nut) because they extended an invitation to join them in the Bahamas for a few days. Julie, my wife, had never been to the islands. And since stage one of the permanent move to “The islands, mon..” , is getting her over there, I was able to employ some of my guide buddies to cover my trip for a few days and off we went. Treasure Cay is about one third of the way from the north tip of Abaco, one of the world’s great Edens. Turquoise water, really neat limestone formations carved by the surf, palm trees, sunsets that explode in the western sky. Just drop dead georgeous. Scott and I went with a guide named Pedro on day one, into a labyrinth of cays and islands with beautiful water to the north of Abaco. An area that looked like you could fish it everyday for a year and not fish the same water twice. Conditions were tough, windy and cloudy,(the same horrible weather back home was experiencing) I managed one bonefish, and a monster mutton snapper,(a much more notable catch in my opinion) for the day. As Pedro was tying up the boat at the end of the day however, he tweaked his back( a pain I’m more than familiar with) so needed the next day to recoup. The day after that, Scott opted for the golf course and a friend of his Bill, an attourney from D.C. and I headed back to the flats with Pedro. Bill had never fished salt, much less bones, and to say he was pumped would be an understatement. Conditons were a little better this day, more sunshine for better visability and a little less wind. This is where I join the “Stupid Peoples Club”. We get into a spot that is just loaded with bonefish, probably a hundred fish milling around in a space the size of a football field. We bailed out of the boat and go wading after the bonefish. Now we did notice several small sharks in the area, but I paid them no mind. While casting at a group of bones, I see a bone coming after my fly, there is a big swirl, I come tight and off goes a good run well into my backing. I try pulling my fish away from the school of bones in an attempt to keep from spooking them at Bill’s expence and succeed to some degree despite the fact I’m only using a eight weight rod with a ten pound tippet. Well, I get close enough to have the monster bonefish I’m so sure I’m attached to turn into a blacktip shark, just shy of three feet long, that is foul hooked in the tip of the pectoral fin. The only thing I can figure is the shark was after the bonefish I saw coming in on my fly, and was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up foul hooked. Well, I play the shark out till it’s exausted, just laying on the surface. Keep in mind I handle several hundred spinner sharks five times this thing’s size back home every winter. I see no reason I shouldn’t be able to get the hook out of the thing and send it on it’s way. With my long nosed locking forceps, I get a good hold on the bend of the tiny size six hook, and give a hard yank up and away from me. Now this tiny hook that I’m expecting to let go, straighten out or break does a fourth option that I didn’t expect….it holds. I now have snatched this shark completely up and out of the water, it’s at shoulder level and at arms length, and it shows me why I was needlessly worried about it’s well being. It comes around with speed you wouldn’t believe and makes absolute hamburger out of the index finger on my right hand. Luckily it didn’t get a good hold, as I’m sure it would have clamped and held if it could. From the moment I yanked on the hook, to the shark falling back in the water covered a total time of about half a second. I look at my hand and think “hmmmm, that’s not good….” I throw the rod, complete with shark at Pedro and head for the boat. Somehow Pedro releases the shark and meets me at the boat. Well, there’s no first aid kit, but I have one sheet of a paper towel. I wrap it around the finger and Pedro comes up with a t-shirt he cuts a strip off and we wrap that around the finger. You may be wondering where Bill is…he’s off chasing bonefish frantically, I think he’s assuming the trip is about to be cut dramatically shorter. Pedro sure is, saying…” We go to cleenic,Mon…we go Now, Mon…” “Screw it Pedro…I can still move it and there’s no arteries cut, keep on fishing with Bill…” Pedro looks at me like ” Freekin crazy american…” and trudges off after Bill figuring to have only one customer alive at the end of the day. Well, I sit there in the boat contemplating my finger’s plight, and the bleeding amazingly stops, and the cold water I’m pouring on it is making it pretty tolerable. I stand up and look to see that most of the bonefish have by-passed Bill and Pedro and have encircled the boat. Us Florida guides may not be bright individuals, but we’re tough SOB’s. A left handed casting we go and actually manage to hook one of the bonefish! This is where it becomes painfully obvious that two hands are really a requirement and not an option. After deciding that there’s really no way around it, I break the bone off and sit there disgusted with myself until Bill finally,(like an hour plus after I get tagged) gets his bonefish, I snap a couple shots of him and we haul butt back to the dock. This report has gotten quite long and my finger hurts so I’ll shorten the remainder considerably. Forty minute boat ride back to the dock, forty minute car ride back to the hotel, twenty minute visit to the islands medical clinic, just enough time to get back to the hotel, pack and get to the airport for our scheduled flight back to Florida. Through the ER doors at 7:30 PM and am finally seen and stitched up by a Dr. at midnight, twelve hours after the shark buried it’s teeth in my finger. And twenty one stitches is what is needed to piece it all back together again.