Unless weather turns inside out, one or two short moves of the boat should be enough to locate enough fish to keep rods bent and fishermen busy for at least a couple of hours. Once you've found fish around the bay in winter, catching them usually is a matter only of bouncing soft jerkbaits slowly over the bottom. A sudden weather change, on the other hand, can upset even the surest plan. Gusty northers leave the bay roiled and filthy, which shuts down the bite as fast as a hard east or west wind does in summer. Leave word that when conditions look better than average and either another party cancels or none was booked, you'll take the slot.
Some guides ride out the slack time by hunting ducks or geese professionally.
Mortgages and car notes and utility bills won't let them run empty boats for three months, so from November through January, they chunk decoys instead of topwaters. Given the option, though, if they're staring at a paycheck either way, most of those same guys would rather fish. Howard Horton died Wednesday night after a short and courageous battle with cancer. R. E. Smith Jr. bought the boat in 1996 and, as an integral part of the deal, made sure that Horton remained at its helm. He was indisputably the very finest charter captain on the Gulf Coast.