Problem — You’re on a family vacation with limited time. After TSA probings, thigh high snow and 7-hour airport delays, you finally got the crew to Orlando. You booked the trip 35 weeks, 4 days and 17 hours ago while sitting home in North Dakota.

After spending a small fortune and some college funds to stand in various lines for hours at Mickey World while eating caviar priced burgers and champagne sodas, you suddenly notice that the bright Florida sunshine has turned everyone’s snow white Dakota tan a bright, soon to turn painful, cherry red while starting to wonder if having this many restless, already complaining, always spending, always hungry children was really a good life plan.

At this point the only thing keeping you together are thoughts of that big Florida snook or of trying hard to keep that bulldozer strong grouper from returning to home base. The weather forecast called for perfection and soon you’ll be heading to Southwest Florida for your big guided fishing trip!

Unfortunately, the week and day you picked many moons ago turns out to be timed perfectly with a Southwest Florida windy cold front. Way too windy to take the inexperienced, already painfully sunburned and complaining and soon to be green in the gills family offshore and, all the flats fish are hiding wherever they can find deep water warmth.

Your guide isn’t pleased either, especially after last year’s dozens of cancelled trips due to the toxic algae disaster and also losing a chance to make a new customer happy. Now what? Take the refund offered by the guide since re-scheduling is out of the question? No big Florida fish breaking your wrists? All five kids are crying and moaning, bored to tears now wanting to go home while you stare out of the hotel window knowing there’s still two more days before your flight.

Deep depression starts to set in when suddenly the phone rings. It’s your ever resourceful and understanding guide and he tells you that even though the big snook trip, of course, isn’t happening, he can still put you on a huge fish and keep you safe enough from the weather.

Since your lifetime of fishing only amounts to a few small caught bass, trout and pan fish, and the family is near mutiny, the only questions are where, when and what time do you want me there?

You meet your faithful guide and launch by the river bridge while you bundle up for the long cold and wet ride ahead yet stop only a hundred yards from the ramp and pull out of the wind and anchor protected by a large bridge piling.

The guide breaks claws off a large blue crab, removes the shell and breaks the crab into two pieces, impales one on a 4/0 circle hook and drops it down to the bottom, hands the rod off and tells you to hold tight. Twenty minutes later your rod bends double and you find yourself attached to something really big, determined to pull you from the boat. After an arm-breaking fight, Mr. Ugly comes to the surface. No, not a cobia or amberjack, but a hard pulling, 50-pound, whiskered winter bridge drum that saved your trip!

If you can’t get out due to bad weather, try wrestling one of these inshore river giants. The area bridges hold them right now and Wednesday’s trip to the Peace River Bridge in Punta Gorda not only resulted in monster drum but juvenile goliath grouper and nice sheepshead as well.

Take a selection of live blue and fiddler crabs and a flat shovel to scrape barnacles off pilings to get the bite going. Easy, low tech, big fish fun.

Please contact us for one person to family sized fishing charters or for info on our all-inclusive 2-hour, total beginners saltwater fly fishing class featuring one-on-one instruction.

Capt. George Tunison is a Cape Coral resident fishing guide. Contact him at 239-282-9434 or captgeorget3@aol.com.