How did this man ever manage to put up with me?????????

 Most mornings In the early 1960's Captain Stu Apte would leave the dock behind his home on Little Torch Key. With him in his skiff, "Moms Worry", would be a client or two about to realize their dream:  A day in tarpon/bonefish country with one of the best skiff guides to ever pole up into the south Florida breeze.

Lurking (much like hiding) behind bushes along the highway, would often be a young man who thought of little else but the dream he shared with Stu's clients (who he did not know). The young man was not leaving the dock with Stu, but as he watched others leave his dream fomented.

It was not quite the dream I had in mind...My first day on the water with Stu was duck hunting and bass fishing. I had no idea that Stu was such a well rounded sportsman. I quickly learned!

I did at last get into a skiff with Stu. It was in the lower Keys during April and the tarpon were just beginning to lay up on banks near channel edges. It was a kind of fishing that I thought I knew. Stu, very gently, made me understand how wrong I was.

During the next seven years I fished with almost no one else. Aside from the fun of it all, and the dream come true, it was much like a very long, post graduate course in advanced fly fishing; taught by the best professor on the planet ! It was also wonderful to learn that someone i'd idolized was all I hoped he'd be.

It was Stu who made it possible for me to be involved in a TV film production. It was as a camera boat driver...but I was there! Later, Stu again got me involved. This time on camera, with him, in a real TV show. The show was about tarpon fishing in the Keys and was filmed by Glenn Lau and was called Tarpon Country. We filmed another tarpon show together in Key West for the O.M.C. Corporation. We actually fished for giant tarpon from a small canoe. Not only did we catch some, but had them jump into the canoe and sink us! Again it was Stu who dragged me to Costa Rica to film a sailfish show with football legend Dick Butkis.

When I later got my own television show (The Saltwater Angler) Stu encouraged me and was quick with advice that helped greatly. A later show (The Walkers Cay Chronicles) found Stu as a guest angler more than once...helping lend credibility to the series.

Many of my efforts and projects, since that long ago duck hunt, have Stu's finger prints all over them. 

Thanks "Uncle" Stu!!!!!!!!!