The skiff hadn't yet settled on the anchor line when Capt. Robert McCue was over the side in three feet of water, working his lure around a clump of shoreline mangroves.

In a matter of moments, McCue connected with a snook that, by reasonable estimates, would weigh in the neighborhood of 10 pounds. Mindful of the mangroves, he positioned himself between the open water and shoreline while gradually wearing down his adversary.

As McCue worked on his snook, I was jolted by a strike as my 1/4-ounce gold spoon, wobbling alongside a barely submerged oyster bar, was ambushed by a redfish.

Sans a leader and with spindly 6-pound-test line on my spinning reel, this 5-pounder gave not only a fair accounting of himself but nearly had me whupped more than once.

As McCue and I labored away, the third member of our team, Steve Marusak, came fast to another rampaging snook that had busted his jig and raced south.

In quick succession, he subdued another snook and a brace of keeper-size reds.

McCue, in turn, landed and released another snook plus a bull red, while I got my snook and a couple of rat reds that might have measured legal had we taken time to stretch them out on the Florida Sportsman Boatsticker taped across the transom.

Although there was another half-hour remaining of an incoming tide, we opted to move on. We were in pursuit of a mission. McCue knew where there just might be some tarpon, and that was the next step in accomplishing our goal of a Gulf Coast Grand slam.

A Slam on the Gulf Coast--or at least the Slam we were after--is a legal-size snook, redfish and trout on the same outing. Throw in a tarpon and you have a slam of the Grand variety.

McCue, Marusak and I had pulled away from the Hudson Beach public ramp as a rising sun peeped over the yardarm. "It doesn't look good," mused a normally optimistic McCue. "We're getting winds coming out of the northeast, which is usually a bummer.

"But, with a little luck, we may be able to pick off a snook, red and trout in the same spot," he added, while charting a course to an oyster bar northwest of Hudson. Several tosses of the 10-foot cast net filled the baitwell with medium-size sardines. The next stop was the one that produced the snook and redfish elements of the Slam, which we had now left behind.

The area we departed was, for all practical purposes, the northernmost range for snook on Florida's Gulf Coast, even though occasional linesiders are taken as far north as Weeki Wachee, Homosassa and Crystal River, particularly where the runoff from a nuclear power plant affects the temperature of backcountry waters.

"Wintertime temperatures restrict migrations this far north," McCue explained. "If we have two or three mild winters, you're likely to see an increased number of snook in more northern areas. However, these fish are often wiped out during sudden temperature drops in January or February."

Which hadn't happened for a while, so snook were part of our Slam plans.

Reaching Gulf Harbors, we saw a couple of small tarpon roll on the surface and we anchored in one of the easternmost canals amid luxurious waterfront homes at the top of an outgoing tide.

Rolling fish are rare here, McCue explained, but when you do see them, there are usually plenty of others you don't see. Chumming first with stunned sardines, we cast frisky baits pinned to 1/0 Owner SSW hooks snelled to leaders three feet below a cork. McCue prefers this hook for tarpon fishing because it is extremely sharp, strong, and it seems to set itself when a fish strikes.

For tackle, we stayed with the same light gear used when catching those snook and redfish off Hudson.

"There are a few big tarpon in here," the skipper declared. "But, most will weigh between 30 and 60 pounds." Unlike our earlier adventure off Hudson when snook and redfish practically jumped in the boat, these silver kings weren't having any. We moved into other canals with the same results--zilch.