It‘s not very often that a local fishing guide is invited by one of his clients to go on a charter with another local fishing guide. Competition between guides can be — well, downright cutthroat. Heck, I’m not even sure if I would let another guide on my boat, at least not one that I wasn’t close friends with. After a couple seconds of empty random thought (my wife says that’s all I’m capable of) I figured what the heck — if he lets me on his boat then maybe I’ll get a couple new spots out of it. Plus it would be just rude, not to mention crazy, to turn down a free fishing trip from a client.

So on Monday morning, I hopped in my truck headed to the dock next to the Albee Road Bridge in Nokomis (a great snook spot, by the way), where I met up with Jeff Conner, who had invited me, and John Helm, who is also a client of mine. All of a sudden all of my empty random thoughts started to come together: “This guide is stealing my clients!” Then I realized they don’t hire me to take them 30 miles out into the Gulf, and if they did they wouldn’t catch much anyway. Capt. Ed Johnson of Fish Factor Charters is an offshore guide. Seeing as I guide inshore and nearshore, he really isn’t my competition (thank God).