April 28

The Everglades trip was very nice. The trip included my Dad, his financial advisor, Ernie, and my Uncle Gus. This was Ernie’s first trip to the Everglades and he had heard many stories from my Dad. He was fascinated by the trips in the past when we had rented a houseboat, but none were available when the reservation was made. We had reserved a cabin in Flamingo, but Ernie really wanted a houseboat. Apparently he had been calling down there for weeks to see if there were any cancellations. He even called twice on the road down.

We met around 4:30 AM at an exit on 75 near my Dad’s house. Gus and Ernie live further north. When my Dad and I arrived a few minutes early, Gus was already there waiting for us. This was quite predictable. Gus loves these trips, and was really looking forward to this one.

Ernie arrived like a hurricane. Ernie is the type of guy that you know is there. He is a little loud, he is large, and he is enthusiastic about everything in life. I think he described every fishing spot, every bit of food we ate, the weather, and every piece of gear with the same phrase, "This is awesome." Ernie drove up in a Lexus LX450 towing the largest flats boat I have ever seen with every imaginable gadget, the stuff you only see in the magazines. Ernie’s truck and boat were both filled with stuff.

Gus, by contrast, was driving his old Chevy pickup. He got one of the years where the paint hadn’t properly adhered to the primer, so the truck is multi-colored. I joked with him that I thought it was snowing as we were going down the road, but it turned out to be the white paint peeling off his truck. Gus has had the same boat for as long as I can remember. It is a little boat, only 15 feet in length. It can handle a decent chop on the water, but has some clear limitations. I think Gus is on his third motor. Gus is the kind of guy who only buys what he needs, a keep-it-simple person, perhaps the kind of person who could fit all of his belongings in a trailer and move across the country.

We arrived several hours before check in and they didn’t have our cabin ready. Ernie and my Dad went to work trying to negotiate a cabin as quickly as possible so that we could get started fishing. They were apparently pretty successful as we only waited for a little while, organizing the boats, before Ernie got a cell phone call saying the cabin was ready. We checked in, drove over to the cabin, and began unpacking. We had already figured out bed assignments when the phone rang. It was the marina and miraculously they had a cancellation on a houseboat. It was decision time. The houseboat was only available for four of the five days we wanted. We would lose a day of fishing and return home a day early. Ernie tried every trick in the book to negotiate for the extra day, but he could not get it. We were able to get out of the cabin for no charge, so we decided to take the houseboat. It would give us three full days of fishing. We re-packed the vehicles, mostly just throwing the stuff in the back of Gus’ truck, and drove over to the marina for our houseboat. It was a combination of Ernie’s unrelenting persistence and incredible dumb luck that landed us the houseboat.

The houseboat is a better way to go fishing in the Everglades. We like to fish the west coast of the park. This is a 15 to 25 mile run from Flamingo. With the houseboat, you take the 25 mile run through an inland waterway to get to the gulf side of the park. There are plenty of places to anchor. From there, you are only seconds away from some of the nicest snook fishing holes in Florida. The early morning is especially wonderful since only the houseboat people can reach those points so early. Regardless, there are days when you may only see a couple of other boats out there. It is the most remote location east of the Mississippi. You are a long way from any real civilization. It is a wilderness adventure.

The houseboat is a slow go, taking almost 4 hours to cover the 25 miles. Once we are out of the canals from Flamingo and into Whitewater Bay, we hook the fishing boats to the back of the houseboat and tow them. This saves gas on the fishing boats (there are no gas stations out there) and allows the whole group to be together on the houseboat, getting organized. It is a bit of a trick to attach multiple boats to the back of a houseboat. You have to keep moving so the boats don’t free float in the wind and bang into each other. Gus has been doing this for years and has developed some expertise. He has had as many as four boats attached to the back of a houseboat, but this year we only had two.

Our arrival was relatively late. A strong northwest wind combined with an incoming tide to fight us the entire way. After five tries, we anchored in a pass a few hundred yards off the main Shark River outlet into the gulf. A long anchor line made it difficult to find a spot that would keep a good distance between our boat and the mangroves for any given wind direction or tidal current. The last thing you want to do is end up too close to the mangroves as that is where the bugs are really thick.

The area is a bizarre landscape. It is almost all mangrove islands and strange rivers and tidal creeks flowing in all different directions. There is an occasional sandy beach area, but true land is very limited. It is a navigational nightmare as everything looks the same. You need to pay attention to direction and landmarks to stay out of trouble. GPS makes it extremely easy, but you do have to think about what you are going to do if your GPS isn’t working.

We fished for three full days, starting at about sunrise and finishing a little before sunset. You really want to get back to the houseboat reasonably early to get inside before the bugs get fierce. I also don’t ever want to be out there after dark. There are no lights and many potential navigational hazards. It would be a slow go with a spot light to find your way around in the dark.

The bugs weren’t bad on this trip, at least relative to Everglades standards. The first day was very cool, near record low temperatures. It was also windy. These helped to keep the bugs nearly invisible. Increasing temperatures, a few windless moments, errant casts to the mangroves and a foolish evening run to a school of fish provided the normal experiences of mosquitoes, horseflies, and no-see-ums. We all took the opportunity to do the ‘Everglades Shuffle’, dancing and swatting to the musical buzz, pointlessly trying to avoid getting bit. It is a true test of your tolerance.

We ate like pigs on the trip. We had more than enough food for the five days we had planned to be down there and the trip had been cut to four. We were able to have fish for dinner twice, something we didn’t count on in our planning. Our excess of food was furthered by Ernie, who brought enough food to feed an army, with venison, quail, steaks, a variety of sausages, and miscellaneous sauces and side dishes. I probably gained weight on the trip.

In our three days of fishing, we did pretty well. I caught two 33 inch snook and several more smaller ones. One of the 33’s was caught on 10 lb test line. I really enjoy saltwater fishing because you never know what you are going to catch. We caught jacks, grouper, trout, redfish, and mackeral. We had many fish break off, cut the line, or in some other way avoid capture before identification. We fished with plugs, jigs, live bait, and dead bait. We fished the shorelines mostly, casting in as close to the mangroves as we dared, but bounced some lures and bait off the bottom of the channels occasionally when the action seemed slow. We netted live bait in several locations.

Dad and I fished from Ernie’s 24 foot boat. Ernie’s boat was excellent for three people to fish from. We had plenty of room to cast the shoreline, although it required some skill depending on which side of the boat we were fishing. One direction required the back person to cast left handed to avoid the tower and the other direction required great care from the front person to avoid the middle person. The middle person had to be careful in either direction. The equipment was amazing and fun to play with, except for a shallow water hydraulic anchoring device that went down and then refused to come back up, requiring a small project to remove the device from the back of the boat.

Gus, as usual, fished alone in his boat. Gus is a joy to watch, maneuvering his small boat skillfully. He can retrieve a errant cast into the mangroves without assistance, driving the boat while reeling the line and finally extracting the lure from the trees without running his motor into the obstacles below water. It is a splendid example of the right tools for the job combined with years of experience.

I think my Dad struggled with the lack of a fishing seat. It was difficult for him to stand all day with his recent back surgery. It would probably have been difficult for him even years ago with his history of back problems. I know what a fishing machine he can be, so I knew he was needing to take frequent breaks. He was still happy to be out there, acting as our guide and showing Ernie where the good fishing spots were.

The biggest excitement occurred on our last day. To set the stage, we had been fishing a point where the Little Shark River comes out into the Gulf of Mexico. As we fished the shore line inland from the point, we reached a protected bay. A pair of mating loggerhead turtles surfaced near the boat, but quickly disappeared. While looking for the turtles to reappear, I saw a tarpon roll in this bay. We continued casting the shoreline, but nothing much was happening. Gus motored over to us and we chatted while casting. At one point, while talking to Gus, I noticed a school of bait fish thrashing the surface just behind Gus’ boat. I pointed it out and we decided to pursue the bait. Ernie got a cast net and my Dad used the electric trolling motor to pursue the school. The school was moving quickly, but a bit of luck brought them in our direction. Ernie tossed and netted about 30 large threadfins. They were about 8" long, so for freshwater fishermen they looked more like a meal than bait.

We decided to head back to the point and anchor. It took a couple of tries to get the boat in a position where the brush on the point was in a comfortable casting distance from the boat. It was high tide, but there was still some flow into the Little Shark and our baits swam along in this current, moving left to right off the back of the boat. We would keep rotating positions as our baits moved out of the zone, casting to the left, walking across the back of the boat with our bait to the right, and reeling them in on the port side of the boat.

Ernie was first in the water and it couldn’t have been more than 20 seconds when he was hooked up. A huge snook, probably about 40 inches, ran into the brush and jumped out of the water behind the sticks that were closest to us. He knew it was a dangerous position. He fought to pull that fish out from the brush only to have it turn and run back, breaking his line in the process. Knowing that large bait would mean large snook, we decided to go with heavier tackle.

It took a few minutes for the action to return. A large predator snook screaming around and jumping has a tendency to upset the ecosystem. I think all the fish lay low for a while. I decided to let my bait go a little further to the right, out toward the channel. Truthfully, I was taking a bit of a break and didn’t feel like reeling in and casting back toward the brush. It was not some clever fishing strategy. All of a sudden, I felt a ping ping ping on my line. My expert companions tell me that my bait was terrified and trying to get away. I didn’t know that at the time, I only knew something was about to happen. The rod went heavy and I dipped the tip downward to let it have a chance to inhale the bait. I lifted the tip back up and the rod bent over and the line began peeling off the large spinning rod. All I could do was hold on and watch as the line headed for the brush.

The next thing we know, a tarpon leaps clean out of the water behind the brush. Ernie saw my line land on top of one of the sticks and bend it down into the water. The tarpon was several feet long and several feet out of the water, call it 5 and 4 to put it in scale. The fish turned to the right and began heading for open water. It leaped a couple more times and all I could do was hold on as line continued to peel from the reel. Ernie and my Dad discussed pulling anchor and giving chase. They wanted to wait to see if it was hooked adequately since tarpon encounters are typically brief and unsuccessful.

We gave chase and I reeled in line, trying to keep tension on the fish, trying to tire it quickly. The battle went on for about 20 minutes, we estimate. The powerful fish made several more runs and came partially out of the water a couple more times, shaking its head in an amazing display. My arm tired. I had to switch the rod to my left arm a couple of times to give my right a break, leaving me at risk of the fish running toward me with no way to reel in line. I only took short breaks this way. Someone opened a bottle of water for me to drink. Finally, the fish was alongside the boat. I pulled hard, trying to get its head out of the water, trying to turn it one last time, trying to get it to give up. It worked and the large fish lay on its side next to the boat for a few quick pictures. We quickly released the fish, giving it a push with the net to get it started. It sprung back to life and swam away under the boat. We estimate the fish weighed around 110 lbs.

My Everglades trip was memorable. I landed one of the ultimate sport fish in a lucky duel. I met Ernie and was reminded of the lifestyle I was leaving behind, a lifestyle of more money than time. I spent time with my uncle and was pleasantly surprised at how similarly minded we are at this time. He has always been a bit of a conserver. It is in his nature. Finally, I got to spend time with my Dad, doing what he loves to do, fish, and doing what I love to do, hanging out in the wilderness.