Friday, June 12, 2009
A great escape: Florida fishing closer, cheaper than you think
One rain-soaked day spent fishing in Florida ends on a positive note.
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. -- Weather records indicate that St. Petersburg, Fla., averages 361 days a year of sunshine.
This isn't one of them.
As I stand in a pelting rain looking at the wind-whipped and dimpled surface of the Gulf of Mexico, the sky is plenty bright. But that brightness comes from the frequent bolts of lightning ripping through the atmosphere.
"That didn't look good," Bill AuCoin says after a particularly menacing bolt.
So much for plans for a fun fishing getaway in sunny Florida.
Not that this was just a fishing excursion.
This was just a bonus trip, a one-day escape from the craziness of Disney World.
I'd left the family at the park, making the two-hour drive from Orlando that morning to join AuCoin, a public relations pro whom I've known for years through a national outdoor writers group.
Since I've known him, AuCoin has been talking about the great do-it-yourself saltwater fishing around the St. Pete area. He liked to tell me that a day of wade-fishing -- with the same tackle used back home for bass fishing -- was a perfect getaway for anglers taking a family vacation to Orlando.
Unlike many pitches from PR guys, this one did seem pretty intriguing.
So when my wife finalized plans for a Disney trip in May, I sent AuCoin an e-mail and said I was coming over for a day.
It just so happens it is the day the terrible drought that had been plaguing Central Florida starts coming to an end.
The weather is so bad I am thinking seriously that we won't fish. The rain isn't a big deal. But I'm not a fan of standing in the water holding a lightning rod.
Jason Stock, the third member of our group, has an idea.
"We can go check out the Lake Seminole outflow," says Stock, whom AuCoin met through Stock's J.M. Snooky guide business that specializes in wade- and kayak-fishing around St. Pete. "When it's raining, the snook really stack up in there."
Snook? Stacked up?
Where's my lightning rod?
Located at a public park, the Seminole outflow is a small dam maybe 18 inches high. When the lake is full, freshwater flows over the top of the dam, washing bait fish into the saltwater creek below, where predators lurk.
Stock threads a 3-inch-long bluegill on a hook, pitches it into the froth and quickly gets a hit, though he doesn't hook up.
Snook are among Florida's most admired saltwater game fish. They are like bass in that they will explosively blow up on plugs, and they are known for their tough fights.
AuCoin is casting a jerkbait, while Stock switches to a Zara Spook surface lure.
I throw a small, live bluegill into the wash and quickly feel a tug. The fish is on.
On its first run, the fish rips drag off the reel -- the fight you'd expect from a 10-pound striper.
But the fish turns out to be a 5-pound snook, and I can see why anglers love these tough fish.
Out of bait, we cast lures for another 30 minutes without any action.
Time to go.
After a short stop at a local tackle shop we are knee-deep in the Gulf, outside an inlet. The Gulf is fishable now since the lightning has ended.
Using a rubber grub, Stock quickly hooks up with a spotted sea trout, maybe 16 inches long.
A few minutes later I connect with a 14-incher, then catch its twin 20 minutes later. AuCoin catches one, too.
It's midday and the rain is picking back up so we break for lunch, then head to a small set of docks on the inland side of St. Pete's Beach.
Stock has headed to the beach to try to net some bait, so AuCoin and I wait under the eaves of a closed bait shack.
"Short of a hurricane, this is about as bad as it gets," he says, shaking his head.
After Stock returns with a few bait fish, I drop a small pinfish down next to a piling and something smacks it. The fish takes off and almost immediately breaks me off when the line hits a barnacle-encrusted piling.
Stock is using a large pinfish and soon his heavy rod is bent nearly double. Instantly the fish dives into the rocks on the bottom of the bay. Stock can't budge the creature, which he suspects is a decent grouper.
Then somehow he gets the thing loose and starts cranking it in, but just before the fish is in sight, the hook pulls.
A few minutes later, the small pinfish I'm using draws a strike and this time the fish doesn't get away. It's a tiny grouper, maybe 12 inches long.
After Stock and I each get broken off again, we are out of bait.
While we can complain about the weather, it's tough to complain about the fishing. In just a few hours we'd caught three different species from three different types of spots.
And then there were those big, strong mystery fish that broke us off and left us wondering -- and left me wondering how soon I can get back there to give them another shot.
