the day after the day after Christmas 12/27/08

It was such a nice day - clear skys and temp in the low 80's. I just had to get out and do some fishing! I decided on a quick "hit and run" wading trip to Big Carlos Pass (Lover's Key).

I stopped for a late breakfast around 10:30 at Bonita Bill's. Barb was working and served me my eggs and sausage. I quickly finished eating and headed over the Matanzas Bridge to the beach. Looks like quite a climb uphill from this angle, doesn't it?



Off to the left was a good view of Matanzas Pass and the shrimp fleet (snapped at 35mph).



Coming off the Matanzas Bridge into Ft Myers Beach I could see just what a beautiful day it was! Sunny, warm, and crystal clear skies! I don't want to live any where else if we have mid-December days like this!



I parked and paid my dollar at Lover's Key and started the half mile hike to the point at Big Carlos Pass...



Saw this critter fishing in the lagoon as I crossed over the bridge...





I took this photo as I arrived at the point of the pass...



I don't have any pictures of fish to show you because I got totally, absolutely, definitely skunked! Not even a nibble! I fished for about an hour with nothing happening. So I got bored and snapped pics of boats and stuff. At least you can see what a nice day it was!









Everybody and his brother was headed to the beach as I drove home! It was about 1:00pm and traffic heading to the beach on San Carlos Blvd was backed up all the way to Pine Ridge Road! Thankfully, I was going the other way!

I got home around 1:30 and took my wife, Nancy out to lunch at El Tropical Cuban Cafeteria.

Life is good!

Tarvus

Three "hit and run trips" 12/16-12/19

I've been lazy lately and haven't felt like unloading all the gear out of my van to load up the kayak. But the weather has been great this past week and I just couldn't resist getting out to at least wet a line and do a little wade fishing. I call these short trips "hit and run" trips because I hit my spot, fish a little bit, then run off to other adventures. At least I get my fishing fix in though!

My first trip was Tuesday, December 16th. I fiddled around at home most of the morning. Not sure I got a lot accomplished, but by late morning I decided to go fishing. I just threw a light spinning rod in the van along with a pair of needlenose pliers, added a few backup lures to the cargo pocket on my Native Kid shorts and took off!

My first stop was a hunger abatement stop. As I approached the Matanzas bridge enroute to Ft Myers Beach, I felt the urge for a fish sandwich and I knew just the spot to satisfy that urge! I hung a right at the foot of the bridge, and immediate left, and a left again at the stop sign and ran straight to the Dixie Fish Company a short block away! If you haven't tried the food there you owe it to yourself to do so! It's AWESOME! I opted for a grilled red snapper sandwich and a cold beer. The snapper filets were so big they overlapped the bun by a good half inch on all sides! Well fed and happy, I headed over the bridge and to the far end of FMB to Big Carlos Pass.

I parked at the Lovers Key lot just over the Big Carlos Bridge, paid my dollar, and walked to the point about a half mile away. I got there at about 1:30pm. The tide was incoming and ripping along pretty fast. The big schools of bait I had seen there before were not in evidence. But undaunted, I commenced casting and jigging my silver 7/8ths ounce Gotcha lure.



Not much was happening though. No bait, no birds, no action. But, ya know?, I didn't really mind that the fishing was slow. The day was gorgeous and the scenery was great...



The air was warm, the water was clear, the sun was shining and I had my legs in salt water and my toes in the sand. Life was good! I watched a biplane (I think it was a "Stearman") cruising along overhead and along the shoreline - probably with a sightseeing customer aboard.



I persisted with my casting and eventually felt a bump on my line, but missed the hookset. A few casts later, the same thing happened but this time I connected! I brought a feisty little spanish mackerel to the shore...



And within moments of releasing him, I had hooked his twin!



I also caught a couple of lizardfish...





but had no more action after that.

I soon called it a day and trudged back to my car. I headed in the direction of home, but made an obligatory stop enroute at Bonita Bill's where my friend, Kirby, served me a cold brew. I bumped into friends I had met at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri during the band's summer tour and we swapped tall tales and stories for a short while. But I left shortly later and made it back home by about 4pm.

I finished the day back at El Tropical Cuban Cafeteria enjoying deep fried pork chunks, black beans, and sweet plantains! My lovely wife decided it would be cool to take a picture of me taking a picture of her, taking a picture of me...



I worked Wednesday. Thursday, I ran errands. I had breakfast at El Tropical Cuban Cafeteria (3 egg omelet with bacon, ham, sausage, green and red peppers and onions, a cuban cafe con leche, and a 12 ounce jar of mango juice - all for $6.31!)
I then hit Walmart, Home Depot and Target for Christmas gift cards, filled the van up with gas, bought a few items at Publix, and found myself heading south on Skyline Blvd. Since I still had my spinning rod in the car, I decided to hit a spot I had never fished before, but had often wondered about - the Bimini Basin at Four Freedoms Park. It's a large salt water pond in the Cape Coral canal system located just off Cape Coral Parkway. I figured the water there would be warmed by the sun and perhaps I might snag a snook warming himself in the sun there.

The Bimini Basin is a pretty spot right in the heart of Cape Coral...



I had my same Gotcha lure that I'd used Tuesday. The water in the basin was clear, albeit a bit tannin stained...



I made four casts with nothing happening, but on the fifth cast, my Gotcha got nailed by a fat trout in the seventeen inch range...



his back was a deep bronze color from being in the tannin stained water...



But after the trout, nothing more happened. I did the obligatory four dozen casts and called it a successful "hit and run" day after spending less than a half hour there. I stopped for lunch at the Twisted Conch on 47th terrace and had a cold Yuengling beer and a grilled grouper sandwich before heading home.

I wasn't planning to fish Friday. My wife had talked about working a half day and taking the afternoon off. But she called mid-morning to say she was going to be tied up at work all day after all. It was such a beautiful day with the temp destined to be in the low 80's, and since my spinning rod, pliers and spare lures were still in the van, I checked the tides and headed out.

The low tide was supposed to be at about 11:45 that morning. I decided to hit my spot at Big Carlos Pass again, catch the last of the outgoing tide and the first of the incoming tide. I made the half mile walk out to the point and was there by 11:30. I shared my spot with this fellow. He watched my every move closely...



I got the skunk off the beach with a hungry lizard fish...



My bird buddy watched close as I unhooked a second lizard fish...



After the two lizard fish, I caught two fish that sort of looked like lizard fish from a size, shape and coloration standpoint, but they had large wing-like pectoral fins and what looked like pincher like legs in front of the pectoral fins. I dunno WHAT kind of fish they were, but here's a few photos...







I sucessfully released the first of the two, but the second one flopped off the hook onto the sand and bird-buddy was there to snap it up at my feet! He headed off into the brush to enjoy his fish lunch unmolested!



The tide was late. Slack tide wasn't until 12:15 and it was about 1:15 before the incoming really got moving. With the incoming tide movement, I started seeing both glass minnows and sardines make their appearance. They weren't in huge abundance, but there were enough that I figured the predator fish would begin showing up soon. Right at 1:30, boom! My little Gotcha got hammered and something started stripping drag on my reel! It proved to be a respectable length spanish mackerel that was quite chubby! Definitely a muscular fish! He fought well above what I would have expected for a fish his size!





I didn't have my law stick with me, but I guessed his length at about 23" overall. I decided to call it a day and to keep the mackerel for my supper! I gutted and bled the fish right there, then hiked back to my car. A quick stop at 7-11 yielded ice for my cooler to keep him cold until I got home. I pointed the van in the direction of home, but as I passed the Shamrock Irish Pub on the right, I noticed my friend Kirby's car, the "batmobile" there. Kirby works both Bonita Bill's and the Shamrock, but the Thursday and Fridays he works the Shamrock is normally at night. It was unusual for him to be there in the early afternoon!

I hung a quick right into the parking lot there and joined Kirby for a quick libation. I watched the locals shooting darts and listened to some loud, un-Irish like country music while I nursed a beer. I said my goodbyes to Kirby and headed out.

It was still early and I was quite hungry so I stopped at Bonita Bill's and let my friend Kendra the bartendress serve me meatballs and noodles for lunch. I bumped into my friends Dick and Ann there. Dick is a retired New York cop and we had fun discussing local handgun ranges, handguns and target shooting for a while.

I was home by four and set about filleting my spanish mackerel.



I put the filets in a casserole dish with butter and lemon juice, sprinkled a bit of Season All and some Essence of Emeril on them and broiled them in the oven for 10 minutes. Here's the "before" pic...



and here's the "after" pic...



The filets were flaky, moist, lightly seasoned and delicious!

Life is good!

Tarvus

Big Carlos Pass 12/10/08

Well, the engine is shot on the kayak beatermobile and it's not gonna be economically feasible to bring it back to life. The US Congress has been deaf to my pleas for a bailout for the beatermobile (they like to pour good taxpayer money after bad into automotive lost causes, but they wanna deal in BILLIONS and all I needed was thousands - so I was SOL!)

So anyway - I tossed a light spinning rod in the van, left the kayak at home and went wade fishing. It was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the mid 80's and it seemed a shame to waste it without at least wetting a line! I drove to Big Carlos Pass, parked at the Lover's Key parking lot there, paid my dollar and wandered over to the bridge.



I made my first cast from the exact spot I was standing at when I snapped the above picture and I was immediately hooked up to a fish! It turned out a small ladyfish had hit my little silver Gotcha lure! A second cast was POUNDED by a fish which immediately began stripping line! I worked the fish for a minute or two - long enough to see a big FAT redfish come up and wallow on the surface before spitting the hook! So far, two casts, two fish on! Not a bad start to the day! It took five more casts before I had another fish on and this one took off stripping line against the drag as well! It ran to the left and basically did a big 1/4 circle nearly beaching itself in the process! Quite a weird fight! When I finally saw the fish - I saw why. I had foul hooked a sting ray at the tip of it's left-hand wing. After dancing a jig around it's lashing tail, wielding my needlenose pliers in one hand and my rod in the other, I finally managed to get it unhooked without injury to myself or the stingray. I snapped this pic before teasing him back into the water...



I tried a few casts on the opposite side of the bridge - fishing the shadowline and the structure of the bridge itself, but had nothing doing there.



Looking out to the mouth of the pass, I could see birds working bait on my side of the shore - right at the very point. So I decided to walk out there...





Glass minnows were thick in huge schools and the birds and predator fish were having a field day! By casting roughly parallel to the bank at about a 30 degree angle to the bank in the downtide direction and using a fast retrieve with quick snaps and jerks, I started getting some fat ladyfish.











There was another older fellow fishing nearby - maybe fifty yards away. He didn't seem to be having much luck though. He and I both watched a boat motor across the pass, drop it's trolling motor then proceed to motor not 10 feet off the bank we were fishing right in front of first him, then me! Unbelievable! The jerk in the flats boat has the whole pass to fish yet insists on BLATANTLY and deliberately intruding on the water we were fishing! I was fuming! This was totally rude and uncalled for! And I let hime know too!

(sarcastically) "Hey, thanks so much for motoring right through the water I was fishing. That was VERY considerate of you! I really appreciate that!"

(him, mumbling) "The water belongs to everybody"

(me, glaring openly) "Yes, but MOST fishermen are considerate of others and try not to disrupt their fishing unnecessarily! You might want to give that some thought!"

The jerk driving the boat had two older gentlemen with him. They appeared uncomfortable with the boat driver's actions and kept their mouths shut. They were so close to me standing on the bank that I could have literally reeled my Gotcha to the end of my 7 foot spinning rod, reached out my arm, snagged the jerk standing at his trolling motor in the bottom lip and jerked him off the front of his boat onto my little piece of turf! I thought about it too! Maybe in my younger days I would have done it, but now I am older, supposedly wiser, and perhaps more forgiving. Besides that, i just wanna have fun without hassles! But still... it was a tempting thought! They lingered in the area for a short time, then fired up their outboard and roared off. I waved bye bye to them with my middle finger.

I tried to get the other fisherman to fish from my spot. I had the ladyfish dialed in and told him where to cast and how to work his lure for the hookups I was getting. He was fishing with a bass pole baitcasting rig and had a Mirrodine on a 6inch wire clip-on leader with huge swivels and a big bullet shaped worm weight. Tactfully, I tried to tell him that if he got rid of the surplus hardware and tied the lure directly to his mono, he would get more hookups. Be he didn't listen and he didn't cast where the bait was and he didn't get any action that I saw. There was one other fisherman sharing the area and he seemed to have his technique down pat! He was nice and quiet too and didn't intrude on our territory!





All told, I think I caught a released about 10 ladyfish off the point there. Around 3:00, I headed back to the van.



Got home about 4:30, grabbed a quick shower and took my bride to Kumo's Japanese Steak house to celebrate our 14th anniversary!

Life is good!
Tarvus

Maiden voyage of the new kayak beatermobile 12/08/08

So today was my day to go fishing! I haven't been out fishing in a couple of weeks and I've been jonesing for a day on the water! What made today extra special is that it was the maiden voyage of my new kayak beatermobile! I loaded up all my gear yesterday so all I had to do was get myself ready, add ice and drinks to the cooler and go!

But there was a problem. I woke up sick as a dog! I had felt a cold coming on for a few days and it hit me full force yesterday. By 6:00am this morning I was one miserable puppy! Nose runny and raw from being wiped with a hanky all night long, stuffed up aching head, racking cough and a throat that felt like I'd spent the night gargling roofing nails! All my bones ached. I figured I could either lay around the house all day feeling bad or I could go fishing and at least have fun while I was feeling bad. So I went fishing.

I stopped at the Mickey D's at Summerlin and McGregor and had the big breakfast, orange juice and coffee. The food made me feel a bit better. By 8:30 I arrived at Bunche Beach. Took a few pics of the beatermobile before unloading...





I launched the kayak and angled towards the causeway aiming the nose of the kayak just outside the tip of the big sandbar to the right. Before I had gone 200 feet, I had this little gag grouper hit on the blue Bomber Long A I was trolling.



As I neared the sandbar and rounded the point, I started catching ladyfish. The first one was one of the big ones people have been getting lately at Bunche Beach. I had a cormorant lurking nearby hoping to get lucky when I released the fish...



I fought about six ladyfish to the kayak as I rounded the point of the sandbar. Some were average sized and several of them were of the large persuasion...











Eventually, I got my second small gag grouper of the day...



I decided to paddle towards the shore to explore one of the more remote salt creeks and get back in the mangroves a little bit. I picked up a third gag grouper on the paddle in. This one was a bit bigger and measured about 15 inches.



I paddled over a sandbar approaching the creek entrance. Lots of birds were hanging out in the area...



And the creek itself was beautiful! Sheltered from the wind by the mangroves, the water was deep and green and looked really fishy!







The day was crystal clear and the contrast of the mangrove leaves and sky was really pretty...



But once I got up in there, all I had to fish with was my three floater/diver plugs. In my exhuberance to pack up the night before, I had flat out forgotten to bring my tackle bag so no plastics, bucktails, or DOA shrimp to toss. I casted the smallest Yo-Zuri a few times but had nothing doing. I did have one baitcasting rod rigged with a circle hook, but I had released all the ladyfish I had caught so had no cut bait to use either. But I admired the scenery, the birds and the peacefulness of the place. It was a little patch of wilderness right near civilization and I bet kayakers and canoe paddlers are about the only people who can get back up in there!

Eventually I paddled back out. Right away I was into the ladyfish again...



The wind had really picked up and naturally, I was head on into it as I paddled back towards Bunche Beach! I had to really WORK getting that kayak moving and keeping it going! If I stopped a few seconds to rest, the wind would blow me backwards. But I must have been paddling hard enough to make enough headway to wiggle my lures enticingly, because I got another gag within a few minutes and it was in the 16 inch range.



Rounding the point of the sandbar, I got heavily into the ladyfish again. They kept my rods bent consistantly!











My last and biggest grouper of the day was about 19 inches long. It was a pretty fish and put up a nice fight!





By this time (it was noon) I was pretty tired from fighting the wind, my nose was raw, my throat was sore and I was ravenously hungry (Feed a cold, starve a fever, right?) So I paddled in, loaded up and headed to Bonita Bill's for a bite of lunch! The special today was meatloaf with scalloped potatos and english peas! I ate like a king for six bucks!



While there, I renewed my friendship with my old buddy, Splash - the cat!



Splash got his name after some sadistic cretin tossed him off the top of the Matanzas Bridge into the pass. Splash survived the fall, swam to Bonita Bill's where he crawled up out of the water onto a dock and was promptly adopted and appropriately named! Every good waterfront bar needs a bar cat and Splash performs his duties with exceptional aplomb!



I would have liked to stay at Bonita Bill's but had to get home to take my new pet Chihuahua, Rocky, to dog obedience school by 3:30. (Rocky is flunking out I'm sorry to say...) So I'm cruising along with the engine purring in the new kayak beatermobile figuring I have plenty of time and I get one block from home and the new kayak beatermobile coughs once and dies. DRT! Won't crank. Acts like the engine is siezed. Now ain't THAT a fine kettle of fish! I bet I don't even have 50 miles on it yet! (Can't tell because the odometer is broken).

So I walked to the house, got the van and brought it back to load up poles, tackle and kayak gear so nothing could get stolen out of the car. I didn't like leaving the kayak on the car, but didn't have time to unload the van to make room for the kayak. However, I had a brainstorm while unloading my Wheeleze! I promptly fired up my son, Benjamin's motor scooter which he left in my care when he moved up to Georgia back in October. I strapped the Wheeleze on the back of the scooter and returned to the beatermobile.



This is what I rigged up...





Two minutes later, I had the kayak ready to unhook and be dragged into the back yard!



Rocky and I made it to dog obedience school on time and he did a little better today. My wife just made me a delicious pork chop dinner. I'm headed to the drug store to get medications for my cold. All in all, it was a fun and interesting day.

Life is good! (even when you have a bad cold and gotta look up a tow truck in the phone book to go drag your beater car to the shop!)

Tarvus