Last Updated on September 5, 2026 by Capt. Bucky
A few months back in my community there was an incident where a man harassed two teenage boys fishing. The man threatened them and threw their tackle box and rods into the water. I caught wind of this through the Westchase community Facebook page and on the local news. I offered to take the boys fishing, because no kid should ever have this done to them. I can say that I have had my confrontation fishing over the years, but it never escalated to a point where I didn’t feel safe or have my gear discarded.
Here is a link to the news story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN1z-yjSO5k
Today we finally were able to make that happen. One of the boys couldn’t make it, but I was able to take Christian, his uncle Ryan, and cousin Davis fishing. Christian was the one who’s tackle was thrown into the lake. It was a fun morning and I am glad I was able to do this for them.
The boys had never really been saltwater fishing so we focused on catching them a slam. That is a Snook, Redfish, and a trout. Today was unfortunately slow. The tides were not moving for most of the day. Luckily, we had some high-water levels. On top of that it was very hot and little to no breeze. I think I am still a little dehydrated.
We started the day focusing on catching the boys some trout which took a little while. There were a few dolphins around and I think that made the trout very weary of eating anything. First fish of the day Uncle Ryan hooks into a small cobia. It was cool to show the kids a little of the anatomy of cobia with their spikey backs and awesome color patterns. After each boy caught a few trout, we switch gears and went to look for Redfish and Snook.
It took a little while to get it going, bouncing from spot to spot catching a few fish here and there. Overall, we landed about a dozen redfish and a handful of small snook. Fishing got a little better as the tide started to finally go out, but by that time we were cooked and ready to call it a day. There were also a lot of boat and Sea-doo activity which probably didn’t help any.
I am just glad that I could show the boys a good time and talk to them about some of my experiences fishing from shore and by boat where I came into conflict with people. I also talked about the best way to handle such situations and to never talk back or argue and just leave. Crazy to think about it, because when we were kids this kind of stuff never happened. I also spent a little time teaching them some knots and giving them some pointers to improve their casting skills.
I have some availability for September and October where the redfish bite will be outstanding. Snook and trout will also be firing off and the fun sized tarpon will be in the mix. Fall is my favorite time of year to fish!
Capt. Bucky Goldman 407-977-7650
