Summer’s here and the fluke are too. It’s been unpredictable but there have been good to excellent catches. I wasn’t able to make the Wounded Warriors day when Chris told me the fishing was terrific. So I hit the bay the next day and only managed 3 fish and Paul only 2. However one of my fish was a keeper at least. I caught more bluefish then fluke. Ironically Jan was out trolling for blues and only got 1. Go figure. KayakJohn went the following Wednesday and got about 30 with 3 keepers. I went this past Friday with Paul and it was terrible. We ran into Phil and crew at the sock and he said he’d been out Monday and slaughtered them. There was a ton of bunker around but nothing really on them. When I landed Phil was coming in from the Belford Channel and had a 20 and 24” fish. The 20 was his and the bigger one was caught by his buddy who didn’t want to keep it. Phil only wanted one fish so gave me the big one. It was delicious.

On Saturday I was joined by an old friend who lives in Seattle now. Steve was in Philadelphia on business and had contacted me about getting together and possibly doing some fishing. He and his son had joined me in the Everglades for a week back in 2008. I brought a filet knife and cutting board with me in case the bunkers were still thick. I figured I’d give strips a try. I put a 3/0 circle on the end of a fish finder rig. Because of the circle hook I found it easiest to leave the rod in the holder and let the fluke munch the strip. It worked well. I only caught 7 fluke but 3 were keepers. One was just under too. I liked using the bunker as Gulp! gets very expensive and the bunker are free. I was hoping for flukezilla but didn’t get any over 20”. Steve got about the same number of fish with his keeper being 19”. It was a great time and we brought home some great eats.