2007 FL Fish-In : Good times, great friends...
Wednesday morning the temperatures had gotten back into the 50's, quite a change from the 49 degrees Sunday, 46 Monday & 41 on Tuesday. Mark had to catch a late afternoon flight, so instead of him only catching an embroidered snook on a baseball cap, there was only one plan of action to take. Couldn't send him home without giving a few more tries at some warmer snook waters! Ironic that everywhere Thunderthumbs, aka Hugo was sent out onto unfamiliar waters he caught fish. Hu-go there & Hugo catches fish, Hu-go over there & Hu-go catches more fish! Hugo went to Snook Alley & we'll have to wait to find out the obvious.......Mark says it's Marks' luck, but I had better ideas. We drove over to the Spring Lake boat ramp where snook had been caught the morning before & after we were there. There are a number of piers to spot the prey & despite the alligator warning signs Mark was wet wading, casting parallel to the mangroves where the glass minnows were absorbing the sunshines warming rays. Nothing took the fly. The journey continued to the Charlotte Harbor Alligator Creek Environmental Park off Burnt Store Road. I had been there from the Charlotte Harbor side by way of boat & knew there were fish in the waters, but didn't realize it was about a half mile hike in from the parking lot ! South on Burnt Store Road we drove to look at the weirs where snook waited for baitfish to be washed over the dams for an easy meal, but since there wasn't any measureable rainfal for the past 3 weeks, no water was going over the weirs. Farther south to the Cape Coral / Burnt Store boat ramp leading out to the Cetus Boat Lock was another spot that had held fish in the past, but the lock was broken & hadn't been repaired, so odds were just like the weirs, freshwaters above to the east, saltwaters below & to the west. Pine Island Road was only a mile farther south & then west to the fly shop where there was a private pay to use boat ramp at the marine store. The fly shop had been in the process of remodeling from the hurricanes destructive winds for the past year, but didn't realize that the knowledgeable fly fisher was no longer in their employ nor was the fly shop going to reopen as they had sold off all the fly tying supplies, leaving only a few rods in the racks. There was one more county park south on Stringfellow Road off Tropical. The drive thru Matlacha & it's regrowth since the hurricanes into an artsy community let the eyes wander onto a new boat ramp sign directing a left turn. There was a regardened park with water access that had a number of spin & baitcasters plying the waters, but with the construction noises on a new house going up across the canal echoing off the waters, it seemed better to continue on the snook quest. The park at the end of Tropical only has parking for a half a dozen vehicles & we got a parking place. We faced east towards Pine Island Sound, just south of the power lines which are south of the Matlacha Bridge which is known as " the fishingest little bridge in the world ". Pine Island Sound has some of the lushest grass flats in Florida. Spartina grass is good, but the turtle grasses of the sound hold more fish than maybe anywhere else in the state. There are so many mangrove islands & creeks that flow into the sound which in turn provides more shoreline than even Florida born natives might be able to fish in a lifetime ! The waters were clear & held glass minnows, finger mullet & mullet; the dinner table for the gamefish was set with the teperatures now getting into the 80's again! There is a narrow boatable canal running just south of the access road to the cul-de-sac parking lot. Islands to the north & south with mangrove lined shoreline as far as one could see acroos the flats. Mark tied on a Golden Bendback & after along while had a hit, & then he had changed flies to a Clouser to fish the deeper waters of the canal after I had walked down the asphalt looking into the canal from areas that had been trampled down to provide fishing access thru the red mangroves to spot some fish for him to cast to. There were some little redfish & snook, too small for a size # 1/0 fly; & a flash of silver from a deep hole in the channel may have revealed a baby tarpon with no apparent way to even get a cast to present a fly thru the mangrove roots & overhanging leaves. A lady in a sit-in-kayak with a spinning rod had paddled back from the northern islands shoreline complaining there were no fish in this area anymore, despite seeing a couple of small sea trout! After taking a few pictures & asking a couple to take our picture together, we headed off towards lunch; which obviously wasn't going to be a snook dinner! The flight was supposed to be at 5:30 pm, later it was found out to be more than a few hours late departing southwest Florida ! Maybe the concept of call waiting should be applicable to airline departure schedules, then I could have driven out to Punta Russa at the foot of the Sanibel Causeway where Mark could have flycast his way into ripping the lips off a snook on the fly instead of having to wear that embroidered one until he gets back down to paradise again !
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