Columns

It was April. The air was still cool. Winters here are only so cold and it seemed that was hanging around for a while. April came early that year. With Mom and Dad in Dunnellon, important holidays, were easy to plan. Do they come to the Cedar Keys? Do we go there? Easter was approaching. Mom usually left her pain and her health problems behind when she got out for a while. We asked them to our house. Easter was set.

The big fish have returned. The food web in our inshore/near shore waters is now nearly complete. With the exception pf tarpon, all of the large predators are now available for some major tug-O-war action. Oh and speaking of big fish, there are several manatees in the area so be on the lookout for these gentle giants.

Holy mackerel! The mackerel that are running the edge of the flats are huge! Monday we caught six that went over thirty inches. Now those are some hefty Macs. Interestingly enough they were caught on freshwater crank baits.

Tomorrow, April 11, will be the 108th birthday of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force. This is of interest to me because for most of my 21 years of active Naval service, I worked on submarines (affectionately referred to as "bubble boats" or "bubble machines"). I never was assigned to one so I didn't have any sea time under water (unless you count the eight hours of the dependents cruise I took my wife on) but, being assigned to a submarine tender, I worked on many of them. The training that I received for those assignments was my first real introduction to computers.

Some weeks back, not that many, a fleet of boats, all on trailers, came to town for a few days' stay. These boats were impressive, bass boats, inshore-offshore fishing boats, boats with long cranes on them, retractable cranes, others with towers, and a couple of just plain pleasure boats. All were clean and pretty and new, at least in appearance, and all had the word Berkeley in obvious display.