Florida and fishing go together like birds and feathers. A Floridian without a fishing pole is blasphemy. Bass Pro Shops provide a fisherman’s paradise of lures, worms, and equipment. My boyfriend, Jake, has been fishing his entire life and had bought a boat two years ago. Shortly after we started dating, he discovered it at the bottom of the bay because it got caught under the dock one night. After realizing that he shouldn’t buy a new boat, the idea of a kayak with a trolling motor fancied him. We shopped for several weeks and finally found a great deal on two 17’ Tarpons with rudders.
Jake, my friend Christina with her maltise, Rio, and me with my mutt, Kiwi, set out for Weeks Fish Camp last weekend each in our own kayaks. We got in the water around 2:30pm and had about 4 hours until sundown. As we paddled across the bay Kiwi paid close attention to Jake, about 15 feet away, and finally dove into the bay and swam straight over to his boat. She repeated the feat 3 times over—once swimming back to my kayak and another time swimming to Christina and Rio. I was a very proud dog owner.
We found a lagoon where fish were jumping everywhere we looked, so I put a shrimp on my hook and cast away. I caught a kitty then a beautiful trout which became the night’s dinner. We decided to paddle further across the bay. A pod of manatee was coming up for air in one small channel. My thoughts were “I don’t think we should paddle over them,” but we did. When they were coming up for air again, they saw the kayaks and split. Now, when a whale is startled it leaves a large wake, I was in the wake of about 50 manatee! At first I thought they had all blown out their air at once because there were just 50 huge bubbly wakes shifting my kayak. Shortly after this, Kiwi went kamikaze and dove in the bay… she is a curious animal.
The next day, the three of us set out for another day of fishing. We started out at Weeks again, but strong winds were driving the current against us, so we set out for a lagoon nearby. Hours past and no one caught anything but ladyfish and catfish.
One of the catfish I caught left me and Christina in the most comical mess we’ve been in so far—and that’s saying a lot. I caught it in the middle of the lagoon, and since I am inexperienced with removing the hooks, Christina came to my “rescue.” As I was trying to tame the flopping fish, avoiding its spines, a fish eating Anhinga came to claim it. For those of you who don’t know what Anhingas are, they are large water birds that dive down to get fish. You see them mostly fluffing their feathers in the sun at water’s edge. So, as I am waiting for Christina to get to my kayak I had to fight the fish on the end of my line and the bird that was diving underwater to get to the struggling fish! Finally the bird-brain forgot about the fish and Christina was holding my kayak.
The current was strong and pushing us toward the mangroves. Christina is afraid of the creatures living in mangroves (spiders, alligators, etc) so she attempted to paddle both of us away from them. The current won and we settled under a tree with a flopping catfish and Kiwi. Jake came to the rescue, released the poor fish, and quickly fled the messy scene cursing under his breath. By that time, Christina had gotten her line tangled on my rudder AND in the mangroves. To make things worse, Kiwi got curious once more and dove into the brumble of mangroves. When I was free from Christina’s fishing line, and Kiwi was safely back in my boat, we found a shady place where the current couldn’t take us and cracked open a cold beer laughing.
Though we did not bring dinner home that night, I learned a valuable lesson… how to handle a catfish by myself!
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