Yea, we caught a few... I forgot what a striper looked liked. We had a double and for a while the action was non stop.

NY Boy owes me for puttin him on fish

OK so I just went and did a little research....I still can not pinpoint what the bugs are but everything I read says ticks can not fly. I watched these fly so maybe they aren't ticks? I wish I would have gotten some pictures of them.

I think I know what you are talking about Bill! these look like ticks except almost look like a snapping turtle head and fly. I don't know what they are but have seen them before.

I have been hunting all my life and I do know ticks very well and they suck (I mean really suck)...LOL

What I have been seeing looks like a standard 2-3mm shiny black tick.

My boat is a 16' flats boat (key west) and is real low. I really doubt it's hitting any branches at Old Federal on the drive in.

On top of that, my boy had the tick land on him at 4PM and we started fishing at 7AM. It is difficult to imagine a tick landing on my deck at Old Federal around 6:45AM, then hanging out on my little (and I mean real little) deck for 9 hours, then getting blown by the wind onto the boy.

I had them all over my boat today as well. The ones on my boat looked like some type of beetle on close inspection. Last year was the first time I have ever seen them. I guess I will be doing some bug collecting tomorrow.

Its crazy! I saw Bills boat. It was literally peppered with these tick-like insects. Hundreds of them. A wild and crazy hatch is happening.

If you happen to have some ladies on the boat, here is what comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tiPndMqxLQ

I noticed large swarms (schools?flocks?prides?) of some small black insects on the surface of the water in numerous places on sunday; can't imagine they were ticks, but were probably some sort of tiny beetle. Maybe running thru them splashes them up the side of the boat and they crawled up on the deck.

This doesn't 'splain the ticks-- I'm pretty sure everyone knows what a tick looks like!

Or if you dont have any ladies...anymore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwRrKaq0IyY&feature=related

If no ladies anymore, you might want to give some of this a try:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3zkkLckeyM