I had no idea it had been almost three months since I posted a fishing report. There has been a lot going on, unfortunately not enough of it has been fishing. Right after my last update, Hurricane Jeanne came through our area on a carbon copy of the track Hurricane Frances followed. Same amount of wind and rain, only difference was Jeanne moved considerably faster and damaged was minimal. I really feel for the homes left with roof damage from Frances. The rain from Jeanne was what really wrecked everything left exposed from the first storm. And shortly after Jeanne, the remnants of Hurricane Ivan moved back over the area with more rain, though little wind. In August no one would have believed we would get three hurricanes in the same month. Most would count it all as a really rude wakeup call living in the tropics can mean. Call it good timing if you will, in the middle of all this, in early October, I had surgery on my left shoulder to correct what thirty plus years of stripping fly line caused. A bone spur removed, slight tear in the rotator cuff attended to, and the removal of, in my Dr.’s words “a surprising amount of Bursitis.” My own form of Fly fishing Carpal Tunnel syndrome I guess. I’ll call it good timing on the surgery because we couldn’t really fish during the storms obviously and the calls for trips pretty much ceased immediately after. I got the green light from the Dr. to go back to work around the 15th of Nov, and I was out the door like a shot. I don’t suffer convalescence gracefully to put it mildly. To tell the truth, only twelve days after the surgery I was wading streams in the Texas hill country fishing for Guadalupe bass. Good thing they max out in size at about ten inches, right up my ally considering my condition. But home is where the heart is and I was drooling to get back out on the water here in Florida. In the interim of the storms coming through and my recovery, winter fishing patterns have come on strong. In the dozen or so trips I’ve done since getting back to work, southward migrating tarpon, winter schools of jack crevalle of all sizes, small tuna and dolphin offshore, spanish mackerel, ladyfish and bluefish have all been encountered. Probably the coolest thing going on this past week was the first wave of sailfish showing up. While a decent number were moving through the normal travel route along the reef about a mile offshore, a good amount were in very close to shore chasing large schools of ballyhoo. Water depths as little as ten feet of water, the sails could be plainly visible cutting through the baitfish, bills slashing. We haven’t been able to get one to commit to eating a fly yet, but on several occasions one would chase the fly eighty feet back to the boat, whacking it all the way before turning off at the last minute. Enough to get anyone with a pulse weak kneed. In just the past day or so, some much bigger dolphin up into the thirty pound range have started moving through, and I saw my first spinner sharks of the winter free jumping. I plan on catching up on the fishing I’ve missed this fall in a hurry and will have more to write about shortly