If you want to go and troll for sailfish, by all means tell Rodney and he'll gladly sort it out for you, but for me personally I simply had great fun chumming on the flats and catching whatever came in. Spanish mackerel, various sharks (they can grow very large), stingrays etc.. The beauty of Rodney's operation is that you can choose what you want fish for, yet still remain entirely flexible.

An example : Rodney mentioned a wreck lying a few miles out into the Atlantic, in perhaps 30 metres of water (the shallower side is generally out into the Gulf). It had to be a wonderful contrast to go wrecking in shorts and t-shirts when at home we would have been dressed in every thermal garment going !! Out to catch some livebaits (vital for Keys fishing, usually easy to chum them in), dump them in the on board live-well, and then roar out at over twenty knots to the wreck.

6/0 hook, short wire trace, 4oz weight, 30lb braid mainline, drop the livebait to the bottom and start a gentle retrieve. Twenty turns from the bottom and some predator smashes into the hapless prey and slams the 12lb class Carbostick right over, but my drag is set too light and suddenly it all goes solid. Apparently this is what big amberjack do for a pastime !! We did catch a few smaller ones, we could just about control a few of them, and a couple of times horribly big barracuda followed the livebaits right up to the surface before turning away. Half an hour perhaps and we were out of bait, but it just goes to prove what a change of plans can bring about. I am told that the US anglers hardly ever fish the wreck...

Rodney and Helen run the business as a basic B&B package, to include full use of the boat and airport transfers, and then you choose what you want to do and add it on accordingly (extra meals, guided fishing etc.). If you are seriously comfortable with handling a boat, by all means take the vessel out yourselves, but of course Rodney will happily come along and guide for you. He can present you with all the options for the fishing and then take it from there; its a unique kind of fishing holiday whereby you decide totally what you want to do. There is no 9 to 5 here : each day is yours to fish as hard as you like. Just enjoy that sun on your face and think of your mates back home in the middle of winter !!

"Wood binds wood round and round" is the motto of the Incorporation of Coopers of Glasgow who sponsored me on a two day trip to Scotland as a prize winner in the WSET Advanced Certificate Examinations. During the two days I travelled with Richard Paterson, award-winning master blender for Whyte & Mackay, from Whyte & Mackay's headquarters in Glasgow to the Dalmore distillery past Inverness on a journey to understanding better the production of whisky and the importance of the role of wood in the maturation process.

To learn more about the influence of wood and to gain an insight into the role of the coopers who construct, repair and renew barrels, I visited the Speyside cooperage run by Willie and Douglas Taylor. Most whiskies start their lives in old Bourbon barrels made from American new oak, as the law for the production of Bourbon states that new barrels must be used for maturation, so used barrels are shipped to Scotland for use by the whisky industry.