This column is dedicated to the recreational fisherperson who wants to have a good time, get the boat wet, spend time with friends and family, and maybe catch a couple fish.

I think this year has been the best fishing I have seen in about 10 years. I don't usually catch mutton snappers and this year I caught a bunch of them. I have run into the biggest schools of mahi mahi I have ever seen and wound up with lots of good-size fish in the box. The yellowtails this year have been plentiful, easy to catch and big. What could be better? I also had the best blackfin tuna fishing day in my life on the Marathon Hump. And all this time the boat ran great, except for one huge problem that would have cost a fortune to fix, but my extended warranty covered virtually all of it. Woo hoo.

I've shot some terrific photos, some really neat video and got to tell some really major stories. Ah, the stories. That's my favorite part. I like to see just how far I can take a story before I get caught. I like the pushology of the whole thing ... that means pushing as far as you can without getting caught. The people who get the biggest stories are the ones who had planned to go fishing and then cancelled, or were not able to go right from the beginning. These folks get to hear about what they missed, even if they didn't miss anything.

"It was the best day of the year, too bad you had to hang those curtains," I've told one guy. And, "The fish were so big, they thought the boat was the bait," I told another. And of course, there are always the stories about the sailboat filled with topless Hawaiian Tropic models that passed by as we were trolling for dolphins. "Too bad you didn't make it that day." My best friend and his wife used to call me up when I lived in Orlando and say, "Man, you need to get down here, we're catching 40-pound bulls just off Alligator Light." I fell for it every time. I would pack up the car and drive the six hours to Islamorada only to find out he hadn't been out fishing for two weeks and was just bored. No problem, I always welcomed the opportunity to visit anyway. I've got two friends who fish together all the time. The day after one of their trips, the stories vary from one person to the other. One claims they caught three dolphins up to 35 pounds, and the other swears they never saw a fish over legal size all day. How can that be? Were they on different boats?

A friend of mine, Rob, missed a fishing trip that I did this weekend. I called to let him know how we did. I told him, "Dude, we caught three wahoos." He gasped, and asked, "How big?" I couldn't help myself; I could feel him falling for this story -- please excuse the expression -- hook, line and sinker. "I don't know," I replied, "We never got any of them on the boat. In fact the biggest one was so heavy that the guy with me reached down to grab the fish and he accidently stuck his fingers right in the fish's mouth. Only his thumb was outside the mouth and when he tried to pick the fish up, it clamped down on all four fingers and shook his head from one side to the other. He actually cut right through all four fingers and they went soaring into the air, the water and onto the deck. 'What should I do, what should I do?' he screamed. 'Reach down and grab him with your other hand,' I screamed back."

I don't know exactly when Rob knew the story had spiraled out of control. He claims he knew right away, but I don't think so.

So, what really happened this weekend? We passed the outer marker at Sisters Creek and the water was dead flat. We throttled up and flew down to my favorite snapper spots near the old 7-Mile Bridge rubble. We anchored up in 100 feet of water with the fish-finder showing all kinds of bottom fish hiding among the bridge debris and rocks. Everything was perfect, but no current. The chum kind of lolled around the basket for a minute, but slowly drifted directly to the rear of the boat. We dropped small pieces of squid on Cy's Flies way back into the chum slick. In fact, we almost ran all the line off the spinning reels before the fish started hitting. We burned through a block of chum and had only two or three keeper yellowtails. We moved into 55 feet of water. We were searching for current, and of course, bigger fish. We burned off another block of chum and had two more keeper yellowtails.

This wasn't what we had in mind. So, we fired up the boat, moved all the yellowtail gear out of the way, and set up some trolling lines. It's funny how the perfect weather days seem to be slow fishing, and this was no exception. We found weedlines and current breaks and finally a school of dolphins appeared under a bird that had been working an area of scattered weeds. We used handfuls of cut squid to chum the fish up to the drifting boat and then cast squid on light spinning gear to them. Hungry dolphins inhaled the baits. The only problem was, they were too small. We carefully released them and set them free. I dropped some weighted baits deep into the water, hoping for a big predator to hit them. No such luck. After a few more peanut dolphins were hooked and released, we moved again and trolled over toward Sombrero Light.

We set up, once again, for yellowtails in 39 feet of water, put out a block of chum, and caught three more keeper yellowtails. All in all, it was a very productive day. We had enough yellowtails for a couple of meals, and after all, wasn't that the goal? And, we had a great day. My pal, Hammer, and I got back to the dock, filleted some fish and washed the boat down. We had had another marvelous Florida Keys fishing day, and I knew there would be some fun story embellishing coming up. Look at that, two stories about the same day. The best part is you get to take your pick of stories and it's OK to add or delete. And as always, life is good in the fabulous Florida Keys.

C.J. Geotis is a life-long fisherman who followed his dream to live in the Florida Keys over eight years ago. He lives in Marathon with his wife, Loretta. His e-mail is fishstories@bellsouth.net