Fishing is improving with the weather. Fishin’ report for 23 February 2007, by Captain Van Hubbard. Beautiful weather and fishin’ is improving every day. The cold winds subsided and the sun shined bright against bright blue skies. The howling winds even blew themselves out. We enjoyed some fine fishing. Catching is not up to par yet but will improve with every degree the water warms up. We had ladyfish to keep Bret and his grandfather Ed smiling on Wednesday. Bret is 7 and a dedicated angler. He can do his own casting; safely. Life can be challenging; young anglers with skill and patience but uncooperative fish. It was hard to believe our first two stops. We could see nice speckled trout running around in the shallow grass flat so we would stop and pitch some live shrimp. No takers, not a big deal we just drift a little and try again. We see more fish but no bites. We ride a mile up to a school of ladyfish we found the day before. They are running all over the bottom so we drop anchor and get ready. Again, no takers. Merry Beth was helping out and Bret had more patience than she does so we headed south to another hot spot. Again bites were way to far apart. We finally got into some hot ladyfish and a few pompano. They had fun and I got to eat fresh pompano for dinner. Life is improving. Thursday it was two half day trips. Blue skies and a brisk breeze. The fish were biting better but not grabbing the shrimp and taking off. We had two interesting trout rallies but had trouble hooking up solid. Half were slot specks and Neil caught a big pompano. Not as good as we are used to but dinner. We just needed to bend some rods on the PM trip so I went back to the ladyfish and pompano area. Water temps are warming but only mid sixties. The ladyfish bit good and we did get few pompano, plus a whiting. Bent poles and smiling clients faces make a happy captain. Friday I had a couple of gentlemen that wanted to learn about the area. So we went in the back country and showed em some of the sites. We saw white pelicans, dolphin, eagles and birds to many to list. We found one nice bunch of small to medium snook. We did get a few up to 25 inches but the boats just kept going thru the school every time we got the fish settled and eating. We cruised farther down the north shore and found a few nice snook and reds but no hot action. We saw trout and ladyfish but we wanted bigger fish today. We sat on one nice bunch of slot snook but they would not eat anything we tried. You have not missed the hot spring action yet but macks will be here anytime and snook will get hungry when waters hit 75 degrees. My guess is early March for baitfish to start coming back in and mid month for good fishing. Tarpon are not far off. Let’s Go Fishin’ Captain Van Hubbard