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Feb. 22nd, 2004 10:31 pm*Whew*...tired and a little road weary, but what a day!
I threw my fishing gear in my truck this morning and went south.
The Skyway Bridge south of St Petersburg is a huge thing, spanning the mouth of Tampa Bay; so it is also rather tall. Tampa Bay was foggy this morning -- a huge bank of white fluff skimming the water and blocking the sky. From the start of the bridge, it was like driving into a white, featureless void. At the very top of the bridge, the fog broke into a sunny, blue sky and it was like flying a car above the clouds. It was freakishly beautiful.
I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go -- the roadtrip was almost more of a goal than the fishing. At first, I was thinking Ft Myers, but I ended up driving down to Marco Island, the first and biggest of SW Florida's 10,000 Islands. It is basically the edge of the Everglades, where the Gulf of Mexico meets the Florida Straits. This time of year, a variety of salt water fish will move up into the Everglades to stay warm. Snook and redfish are two of the most common fish to do this, and though I have caught a few redfish over the past few years, I still had yet to catch a snook.
Marco was crowded, so I headed inland to the Everglades itself, staying south where the salt water would start to mix in with the fresh. I ended up outside of Everglades City. I fished there for a while, caught a mess of catfish (and yes, catfish are messy) but started to get eaten alive by mosquitos. I headed inland again, to the Tamiami Trail, which was the old way to get from Tampa to Miami before the interstate system. Sort of a Route 66 through the Everglades.
I pulled over at a few likely looking spots on the Tamiami, finally settling down at a beautiful mangrove lagoon just off the road. I started to catch bluegill of all things. I was just thinking that maybe I might be in water that was a little too fresh -- bluegill can't take salt water -- when suddenly a six-foot alligator surfaced a few feet away. The alligator stared at me, I stared at the alligator, and we both backed off in opposite directions :) Normally, alligators (especially the small ones) are very shy except when they are nesting, and at the time I couldn't remember what time of year alligators nest. Not at this time, apparently, as the alligator swam off. A smaller one, maybe four-foot, showed up a few minutes later and I was able to snap a picture.
Fresh-water bluegill and alligator encounters (alligators also hate salt water) were not what I was going for, however, so I headed back to Naples, which is right on the Gulf, and safely briny. I fished in Naples Bay right at sunset, and finally scored my first snook! A small one, anyway. Maybe 18 inches, and barely a pound...when the average is almost three feet and 5-10 pounds or more. Still, it was my first one -- I was happy :) (All the fish caught today went safely back -- I can't stand catfish and the snook was far too small to keep).
I drove back after dark, singing loudly off-key in my car to everything from Frank Sinatra to Nitzer Ebb, hitting the Skyway Bridge on a clear night with St Petersburg lit up across the northern horizon.
Beautiful day -- low-80s (high 20s), blue sky, puffy white clouds, light breeze. Odometer round trip: 415 miles.
Pictures after the cut, one of the Tamiami mangrove lagoon, one of the gator, and one of the snook.
( Read more... )
I threw my fishing gear in my truck this morning and went south.
The Skyway Bridge south of St Petersburg is a huge thing, spanning the mouth of Tampa Bay; so it is also rather tall. Tampa Bay was foggy this morning -- a huge bank of white fluff skimming the water and blocking the sky. From the start of the bridge, it was like driving into a white, featureless void. At the very top of the bridge, the fog broke into a sunny, blue sky and it was like flying a car above the clouds. It was freakishly beautiful.
I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go -- the roadtrip was almost more of a goal than the fishing. At first, I was thinking Ft Myers, but I ended up driving down to Marco Island, the first and biggest of SW Florida's 10,000 Islands. It is basically the edge of the Everglades, where the Gulf of Mexico meets the Florida Straits. This time of year, a variety of salt water fish will move up into the Everglades to stay warm. Snook and redfish are two of the most common fish to do this, and though I have caught a few redfish over the past few years, I still had yet to catch a snook.
Marco was crowded, so I headed inland to the Everglades itself, staying south where the salt water would start to mix in with the fresh. I ended up outside of Everglades City. I fished there for a while, caught a mess of catfish (and yes, catfish are messy) but started to get eaten alive by mosquitos. I headed inland again, to the Tamiami Trail, which was the old way to get from Tampa to Miami before the interstate system. Sort of a Route 66 through the Everglades.
I pulled over at a few likely looking spots on the Tamiami, finally settling down at a beautiful mangrove lagoon just off the road. I started to catch bluegill of all things. I was just thinking that maybe I might be in water that was a little too fresh -- bluegill can't take salt water -- when suddenly a six-foot alligator surfaced a few feet away. The alligator stared at me, I stared at the alligator, and we both backed off in opposite directions :) Normally, alligators (especially the small ones) are very shy except when they are nesting, and at the time I couldn't remember what time of year alligators nest. Not at this time, apparently, as the alligator swam off. A smaller one, maybe four-foot, showed up a few minutes later and I was able to snap a picture.
Fresh-water bluegill and alligator encounters (alligators also hate salt water) were not what I was going for, however, so I headed back to Naples, which is right on the Gulf, and safely briny. I fished in Naples Bay right at sunset, and finally scored my first snook! A small one, anyway. Maybe 18 inches, and barely a pound...when the average is almost three feet and 5-10 pounds or more. Still, it was my first one -- I was happy :) (All the fish caught today went safely back -- I can't stand catfish and the snook was far too small to keep).
I drove back after dark, singing loudly off-key in my car to everything from Frank Sinatra to Nitzer Ebb, hitting the Skyway Bridge on a clear night with St Petersburg lit up across the northern horizon.
Beautiful day -- low-80s (high 20s), blue sky, puffy white clouds, light breeze. Odometer round trip: 415 miles.
Pictures after the cut, one of the Tamiami mangrove lagoon, one of the gator, and one of the snook.
( Read more... )
