I had the pleasure to fish with Dick Williams from Tennessee on wednesday this week. The wind was up just enough to keep us from going out to the reefs so we fished on the inside flats around longboat key and anna maria island. The tide was low when we started so we fished the edges of some big flats and the mouths of canals. Mirro-lure little jon jigs in the new penny color was the bait of choice. We caught flounder, pompano and school size speckled trout for about an hour into the incoming tide. When things started to slow we moved to some deeper flats in lower sarasota bay. Here we caught ladyfish, trout and bluefish. By the afternoon the tide had risen enough for us to fish some docks around the island. Here are target would be sheepshead and reds. We switched to shrimp on nocker rigs and it wasn't long before the action started. The first dock produced six sheepshead from a pound to three pounds. A short move to another set of docks and we started to catch slot size reds. I think we landed seven from twenty-two inches to twenty-six inches. On friday Henry Richard and three of his friends joined me for a half day. They had a little get together coming up and wanted fish for a fish fry. The wind was down so we headed for the nearshore reefs off of anna maria. The first spot started with a great bite from a school of small sheepshead. Just about every fish was just under the twelve inch minimum. The action was great with two and sometimes three fish at a time coming to the boat. It was a lot of fun but not to many fish for the fryer. I decided to head west to a little deeper water. Here we caught triggerfish, white grunts, bigger sheepshead and catch and release grouper. By the end of the trip we had a nice mess of fish for there get together. Good fishing! Capt. Rick Gross