Drop It

Posted on February 17, 2013

Six of them walked into the hotel bar and ordered double bourbons. They had already lost their situational awareness and laughed loudly at their own crude comments directed toward the bartender. She laughed along and defused the tension in a way that suggested hard-won poise in handling drunkards. “George bought a boat today boys,” one of them shouted and they clinked glasses. “Nothin’ gets you off like droppin’ a million.” They were from Alabama and they run 100 miles out to fish the Gulf and they came to Miami and George found the boat to do that. A cold front brought in rain and everyone migrated from the boat show to the bars. The chill also shut down the tarpon running the bay and…

Tagged: Florida, peacock bass

Florida, Press Repeat

Posted on October 4, 2012

Bass in Florida are like Led Zeppelin on the radio: Always on somewhere. I’ve said that before* (in one of my infrequent posts on Buster Wants to Fish.) But I am saying it again because the words and the actions behind them are repeatable. Sometimes I wonder if it seems like a broken record with me, and maybe it does, but we all need sporting traditions. One of my main riffs goes like this: Fly down, rent car, criss-cross the State on back roads and wait for the rain to break. Drive past a body of water, look for access, cast. The coasts and the Keys are incongruous with the interior, the land of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Marjory Kinnan Rawlings. All the way up to Shingle Creek…

Tagged: Florida, largemouth bass, something to do in fresh water

Buddy Rich When I Fly Off The Handle

Posted on August 1, 2012

I was standing on a rock and I fell off it. I banged my shin, right in that spot where there’s nothing but skin over bone, and it hurt. The rod did not break. The reel had a gash in the bar stock but still worked fine. I pulled myself up and on to the beach and the person fishing near me laughed. (He was a plug fisherman.) I did not catch a fish. This happened in New York. Fortunately there is a cure for every fishing drought and it’s called Florida. I fished from a lakeshore at dawn for bass and I did not fall in. There are alligators. I had pulled pork and sweet tea for lunch and a cuban with black…

Tagged: eat me flies, Florida, NY, pilchard, pratfalls, snook, snuke

Rollin’ With The Homies

Posted on May 31, 2012

I’m a bass man. What can I say?

Tagged: airport sorties, Florida, nuchal hump, peacock bass

Color Safe

Posted on February 23, 2012

If I lived there still I might get tired of it. Maybe. (If I lived there I’d do everything possible to be in the express lane passing through Whitewater Bay.) But if I’m down there and I have a free moment in the right place, it’s a safe bet to figure what’s lighting up my train of thought.

Tagged: adventures in ditch fishing, Florida, foot patrol, peacock bass

FLORIDA: Drought

Posted on April 20, 2009

Work last week brought me down to South Florida and then up the Space Coast and into Central Florida, and the signs of drought are obvious. Old ditches on the roster are currently unfishable due to the dropping water levels. Central Florida seems to have it the worst. “We could really use a hurricane this year,” one of my fishing accomplices remarked, “only without the destruction. Maybe a tropical depression.” He was hoping for something to fill Lake Okeechobee again, like Fay did last September, so that the State doesn’t have a mad rush over the diminishing freshwater supply. It has been the third driest dry season on record since 1932. There are too many stresses on Florida’s fresh water supply as is. With…

Tagged: conservation, drought, Everglades, Florida, Lake Okeechobee, Sugar Land Deal, water usage rights

Save the World Links

Posted on January 13, 2009

Tarbone sends a letter to Florida Fish and Wildlife asking for better bonefish, tarpon, and permit protections. Capt. Gordon sends word of more news in his battle against Carolina gill nets. Coastal Voices blog has a link to a map showing the extent of human impact on the oceans. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has a petition to the EPA to keep its promise to clean up the bay by 2010.

Tagged: bonefish, Chesapeake Bay, EPA, Florida, gill nets, North Carolina, permit, redfish, tarbone, tarpon

FLORIDA: Mammalian Fishing Challenge

Posted on August 29, 2008

Who do you think caught more? Our boat? (Two redfish.) Or these stone cold killers? Watching dolphin work in concert to trap mullet against the mangroves and then literally flip them into the air and eat them made it all worth getting our asses handed to us.

Tagged: dolphin, fishing, flipper, Florida, mullet, redfish, west coast Florida

Bombs and Butterfly Peacocks

Posted on February 28, 2008

The power outage that rippled north from Turkey Point on Tuesday did not slow down the peacock bass fishing. I also got the chance to test a version of the bass fly bendback tied with a Gamakatsu bass hook. I couldn’t get it to work with any weight whatsoever but got it to swim decently with an expoy head and a long length of super hair. Both largemouth and peacock bass hit it, so that was encouraging, but I’d like to see someone with some aptitude at the vise give it a go.

Tagged: bass hooks, bendbacks, flies, Florida, Fly Fishing, peacock bass

FLORIDA: Gators, Big Cats, and Other People’s Poons

Posted on January 17, 2008

THE TRAIL: I stood on shore with my feet nearly touching the water, totally engrossed in the act of tying on a new fly. Then I felt the sensation of being watched. I looked up to see an alligator floating in front of me, close enough to lean down and touch. It hadn’t been there a minute ago, but now it sat motionless, staring. Instinct took over and I pulled out my Glock and busted a cap in its ass stood there frozen like a total idiot. Then I came to my senses and thought, I should take its picture. The gator must not have liked the sound of the zipper opening on my camera case, because it turned tail and swam away. I…

Tagged: alligator, Florida, Fly Fishing, Tamiami Trail

Posts tagged “Florida”