From Ron Brooks,
Your Guide to Saltwater Fishing.
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Most of us are not lucky enough to be able to do what we love to do every day of the week, every day of the year. How would you like to be able to fish literally every single day of the year? Some might say they would get tired of it, but as for me, I sure would like to give that kind of boredom a try.

Captain Kirk Waltz, a charter guide out of Jacksonville, Florida, has just that kind of job. By his own estimates he is on the water a minimum of 225 days a year. All but a few of those days involve a charter. Those days when he is not booked, he is trying a new area to find more fish.

Captain Kirk, as he likes to be called, spent what for most of us would be a full career in the food service business before deciding to become a full time guide. He runs a 24 foot Bay Stealth and specializes in near shore and inland water fishing for a variety of species, his specialty being redfish.

I was heading for the mouth of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville the other day for a little fishing and to get some pictures. There are usually quite a few boats around the jetties there and I was looking for a picture of a big black drum. I didn't get the drum picture, but I learned something from Captain Kirk!

I watched a lot of boats that morning. Everyone was fishing, but no one was catching. Around 11:30 am I recognized Captain Kirk's green hull approaching from Mayport. He had a party of three anglers on board. and he headed for his spot on the jetties. No one was in that area as he idled up and dropped his trolling motor.

Keeping the boat headed into the outgoing tidal current, the first two anglers cast their baits and immediately got a hook up. As Kirk headed the boat away from the rocks, he saw me and waved. I made some smart remark, to which he replied, "Timing is everything!"

What followed was a minor circus of sorts as other boats recognized this familiar guide and began moving in closer to where he was fishing. Kirk didn't seem to mind, and his party continued to hook redfish after redfish. There were at least five or six boats all edging in within ten or twenty feet of each other trying to get a hook up.

But Kirk knew exactly what he was doing and where he was fishing. He only fished the very last of the outgoing tide and maybe an hour of the incoming tide on this spot. According to him, the fish aren't there any other time.

I learned two things that morning. Actually, I had already learned one of them. First, redfish have a habit of not moving out of their strike zone for a bait. Kirk knew exactly where these fish were holding. He's been on them since December! I know, because he took me to them one day! Second, those redfish would not move ten feet out of their way for a bait. If you are more than a couple of feet off the area they are holding in, you may as well cast again, because you will not get bit!

I had seen redfish be this particular before in South Florida, and this event proves that it wasn't just the area I was fishing. It is a mark of the species that they are this way.

I continued watching as the amiable Kirk bantered with his anglers and the other boaters (by now most of them just sat back and watched like I did). Just another day at the office for Captain Kirk.

That was Good Friday, and I was back out on Saturday headed offshore. The area that Kirk was fishing the day before was stacked with boats when I went through the mouth of the river. I slowed to watch and no one was really catching anything. And, Captain Kirk was no where to be found. Why? First, because the tide was still too high, and second, because he doesn't fish on Saturday mornings. He has a three hour radio show with Captain Kevin Faver and former Jacksonville Jaguar, Jeff Lageman, the BellSouth Outdoors Show, on a local Jacksonville radio station, AM 600.

I guess there are just too many of us amateurs out there on Saturdays for Kirk to waste his time! If you're interested in looking him up, his web site is Enterprise Fishing Charters. Tell him I sent you!

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