FLORIDA: Chilling Consequences of Recent Weather

Posted on February 11th, 2010

While down here for the Miami Boat Show, I met briefly with Aaron Adams of the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust. We had planned on sitting down for a full interview but outside forces pulled us in different directions. We did get to casually discuss the recent cold-induced carnage in Florida, and he dispensed some staggering information. Possibly 300,000 adult snook killed, out of an estimated 1.5 million adults total. That’s a huge percentage. Plus, he speculated that possibly two entire year classes of juvenile tarpon that come of age in the mangroves have been wiped out. Plus damage to turtle grass beds and mangroves that could take years to recover. The thought I took away from it is, extend the catch-and-release only fishing for…

Tagged: Bonefish and Tarpon Trust, cold snap, fish kills, snook

Snook Ain’t Half So Bad a Consolation

Posted on June 10th, 2009

The tarpon had all blown out of the area so we made do with what he had. No matter, any day that involves pulling snook from the mangroves is a good one.

Tagged: snook, snuke, west coast Florida

Back to the Glades

Posted on May 4th, 2009

The headwaters to the Florida Everglades start all the way up in Orlando, where Shingle Creek starts the flow of freshwater south to Florida Bay. Before the developers and the sugar plantations got to it, the massive flow moved unimpeded through a complex 8.9 million acre web of lakes, rivers, and marshes down into the mangrove estuaries of the southern coast. The Everglades hasn’t been what it is supposed to be in over a century, since the election of Napoleon Bonaparte Broward as the state’s 19th governor, and along with that his mission to drain the Glades, starting with the New River Canal in 1906. The National Park today consists of 1.5 million acres of protected wetlands. It’s deathly hot, bug infested, wild, dangerous,…

Tagged: back country fly fishing, Everglades, National Parks, redfish, snook, tarpon

A Brief History of Ditch Fishing

Posted on March 27th, 2009

I loved the article in the Wall Street Journal about brownlining, and was glad to see props go out to Fat Guy, Gracie, JP, et al, and for the esteemed Mr. Chandler and Mr. Barton getting credit for coining a new name for a fly fishing genre. But the article stopped a little short. Before brownlining there was ditch fishing. The concept of casting flies in less than pristine settings goes back decades. In Florida, many well known fly fishing luminaries and pioneers cut their teeth fishing the Everglades and the vast network of man-made backwater canals that carve up the southern tier of the state. It is well documented that anglers such as Flip Pallot, Chico Fernandez, and Norman Duncan–who invented the Duncan…

Tagged: advancements in ditch fishing, backcountry, brownline fly fishing, dirty canals are beautiful, ditch fishing, history, snook, tarpon

Night Snook Declared Great

Posted on November 12th, 2008

The Hell’s Kitchen Fly Fishing and Scuba Tank Advisory has declared sight casting to snook crashing bait in docklights to be great. The Advisory has also declared discount flights to Florida and friends with boats who don’t make you split the gas to be better than good.

Tagged: dock lights, night fishing, snook

PHONETICS: Not snuk, Snuuuuuuuuuke

Posted on August 4th, 2008

Coincidentally, where I grew up is pronounced “Boca Rah-Tone”, not “Ratan.” (As an aside on where I live now, if I say “New York,” the proper response is not “How can you stand it?” or “I could never live there” or or any number of replies that you would be insulted by if someone said it about where you live.)

Tagged: Everglades, Flamingo, snook

BOATS: Glade Runner

Posted on June 30th, 2008

In many places the great river of grass that flows south from Okeechobee through the Everglades and out to Florida Bay is, depending on time and tide, ankle deep. But it is still navigable. The Seminoles and later the cracker Gladesmen criss-crossed the skinny-water labyrinth by poling in long narrow dugout skiffs. It is these historical canoes that Ron Hyde used for inspiration in designing his new Seminole Flats skiff. I spent time last week running the Glades with Hyde in a Seminole, and it is unlike any other modern flats skiff. The one-time owner of the Goodnews River Lodge in Alaska, Hyde has also fished the back country in the Everglades and Biscayne Bay longer than I’ve been alive. He likes to get…

Tagged: Everglades, flats skiff, Seminole, snook, tarpon

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