THINKING LIKE A MOUNTAIN

by John Agricola

The first time I saw a wild turkey, I felt I’d seen an alien. I was just a child.

So when I came face to face with the gobbler, I was closer than any non-hunter should ever be to this bird. Scary ugly. Ugly. His protean red, white, and blue head was wrinkled with hairs and iridescent feathers that never quite grew in. Warts and bumps shaping its eyes. He looked intensely at me in my bright green shirt. Frozen still, ice cream dripped down my tiny hands, and then like a real life version of the cartoon roadrunner, it made its “beep-beep,” a sudden sound of a screeching gobble… GOB-Gob-GOBBLE. Instantly the empty woods filled the silent terrain with its crowded sounds, so that all that then mattered was the ole tom’s pitchy, shredded cry. In a flash, it took off through the forest following the hens beyond sight.

The next time I saw wild turkeys, I was riding with a girlfriend on my four-wheeler to the top of the satellite tower that nests atop the highest point in the Dunaway chain. This forested peak anchors the backside of the Gadsden Country Club. Though the gaggle of birds never saw me that day, they flew majestically in a lumbering fashion out and down towards an opening in the dense canopy. Fans pumping up and down, deftly they navigate the old growth hardwoods. With their gnarled and spurred feet tucked under their massive bronze-black bodies, they coasted to a safer field down below.

Like the Appalachians themselves, I have learned, the history of the turkey species is rich in these hills. Local Cherokee Americans unquestionably made them their quarry. After the indigenous were removed, the turkey were nearly wiped out due to unethical hunting practices and our human sprawl. But we began trying to conserve the bird by preserving its habitat and capturing turkey in nets to relocate them. I have always been a slow learner. I never studied wild game at Auburn, and despite the conservation class my father insisted I take, I had little grasp on why game are where they are. They just were. Unlike the very mountain whose stillness suggests eternity, these ugly birds are today its meandering and soulful inhabitants, ricocheting through the hills and hollows like pinballs put into play by an inadvertent contract worker or, worse still, a thoughtless adolescent on his four-wheeler. From the peak of Hensley where turkeys roost today, one can easily see the mighty Coosa River winding and “essing” through a series of bends, the closest being Whorton’s Bend.

In the 19th century, emigrants from Europe introduced an Asian species of fish known today as the common carp. I have always loved to fly fish, but, like turkey hunting, I picked up fishing for this species very slowly. It took me about five years of being devoted to the sport to achieve a level of skill that allowed me to consistently find these golden ghosts. Fishing on the Gadsden flats, I spent hours among relict roadways now submerged by the damned waters of the Coosa waterway. Much as finding turkey a happy accident, I would never have realized that carp populated these backwaters if I had not been surveying the James Martin Bird Sanctuary for a local engineer. My end-ofhigh-school summer employment intended to be a dose of life’s practical side. Instead, I remember vividly the carps’ allure; largebodied fish gracefully pushing and sliding contrails of escaping muck clouds. It was like the turkey I had witnessed with sticky ice cream hands. These relocated creatures constitute our impressions of the wild, but are actually living accretions of man’s preservation of food source and his ancient agricultural regime. Modeled today from the geological remnants of nearby mountain pinnacles, the carp are happy in the muck of former ag-rows and terraces— timelessly ancient erosion.

I bought a boat that moves in very skinny waters to guide others in catching their first carp on a fly. Though this entrepreneurial dream is not yet financially rewarded, I do still believe in the act of stalking carp by studying their movements, by watching them tail in the mountain mud, and by pushing the boat towards the discolored water irregularities. I am more patient when it comes to searching for the wily and keen-sighted birds in the spring. When I see their tails rise from the placid water’s surface, I move just as if I had yelped a gobbler into revealing his secret spot on top of Henley Mountain.

If ol’ Tom gobbles but refuses to join my decoy party for his ultimate dirt nap, then I am forced to move up on this regal strutting monster. But for the Ugly, his one-and-a-half-inch spurs are his only protection. It is the very same tactic for moving up on a content carp. If it refuses to move or work itself towards me, then slowly and stealthily as possible I move on that prey to get my client close enough to cast his 40 feet of line onto the carp’s dinner plate. For turkey we yelp, cut, cluck, and purr to communicate our love and respect for the Tom in the hen’s language of come hither. For carp we strip it, twitch it, move it, and let it sit.

Sex and food are the tools of communication in these outdoor endeavors. With each, we as sportsmen build upon our mistakes. The mountain on the horizon can be seen hanging forebodingly over the commercial lights of barbeque and car dealership. Here though, the muck clouds tell us, the anglers, where to find the fish to whom we sight cast. The full-throated thunderous gobble is how we know the mountain is not dead, as the muck would have you believe. Rather the call of this wild turkey lets us know that we are blessed with a living wild relic in a town full of contradictory southern charm.

Tying Loose Ends

By Shawn Swearingen

The house is dark for 11am on a June Tuesday. Already too damn warm. Phone at 18 percent. Too many missed calls. Too long ago to reply now. I roll over, run my hand through thinning and days-greasy hair. Dry mouth. Breath as short as a tippet after a long afternoon.

Coffee? No. Hair of the dog. I need to move. Need to get outside.

Sulphurs will be rising. Even with a hatch, the fish are as stubborn as lawyers and the soon-to-be ex. At least trout don’t charge by the hour. The storm clouds are going to pop off as violently as she did when she finally had enough.

Where is that beer?

Tires whine as the truck rolls down the road. I need to eat if I’m going to make it today. Becky is behind the counter, always with a glimmer in her eye, teasing a fun roll in the hay. She knows just how I like my ham on rye and she isn’t hard on the eyes either.

“Here you go, hon.” Her accent and smile ooze like honey.

The pull off is empty. Leave the waders, take the light tippet. Two beers in the cargo pockets. Flies pinned to the mesh back of the hat.

This valley is tucked away from worldclass trout water where brown trout are wiser with each whip of Buster’s line. But this feeder spring creek that eventually feeds into it is a haven. Full of fish and a respite from the fires of home.

On the almost mile-long trail walk, my sweat smells vaguely of rum. Out of breath again. Need to get back in shape.

The air is still, as if listening to the gurgle of the stream talking as it flows past.

The cool of the creek is a baptism. Washing away the sins of the past. Reborn a trout bum.

The best part is not here, but what’s at the cut bank. What haunts it. Gives you cold sweats just thinking about it.

Time for a beer and reading of waters.

Eager grabs and releases with younger fish help knock off the rust before moving upstream. Limit the false casts. Keep it short. Work what’s in front. Keep moving on.

Time for that second beer. The smaller fish are not what I’m after but I need to dry the fly while enjoying the last of the hops.

Drying the fly and dab of Gink ensures the buoyancy as if it were a real sulphur falling to the water after doing his lifely obligation.

The hatch and the air grow heavier. I cast, all muscle memory, primed by sweat and beer.

A submarine surfaces from the dark below. Red iridescence of the adipose like a spot light, the slow switch in his tail. Inspects the fly an inch underneath and follows it slowly backwards, dropping out of sight again. Wait, try again. Recast a little further upstream into the swirl of a small eddy.

Slurp.

Arm raised, setting the hook and feeling the solid jaw all in one smooth motion. Working downstream to the clear. The drag sings before his acrobatics.

Feeling that he might be done, he moves to the middle of the stream. Strikes his paddle twice, diving down to the old stump, wrapping the line.

He’s gone with a clap of thunder. No sense tying on another fly. Two old warriors that will be limping home.

The wind picks up, ushering me back to the truck as the heavens open. There is no sting of defeat any longer. No forgiveness either. Only the acknowledgment of each other’s struggle for survival.

Conservation Corner

The Horizon of Habitat Loss with dr. professor mike & JoEllen K. Wilson

photos by Alan Broyhill

Although many conservation groups deserve headliner status in the Corner, the first group profile (and guest essay) is Bonefish and Tarpon Trust (BTT). I chose BTT to begin this series because I’ve worked with them for many years on sport fish habitat mapping in the larger Caribbean, so I’m more familiar with their work than most any other sporting conservation group. I’m also a flats angler so their mission is also near and dear to my angling heart. Founded in 1997 by a small group of anglers in the Keys concerned with declining bonefish numbers, BTT’s scope has grown to include a research agenda whose geography extends throughout the Caribbean and Gulf, the publication of a fine magazine, and a science symposium held every three years. If you haven’t attended the symposium, you should. It’s the perfect combination of cutting edge scientific information on flats species and habitat, but also includes gear professionals, guides, art, etc. Every flats angler should make a Haj like pilgrimage to the symposium at least once in their life.

In recent years, BTT has applied its scientific research efforts to policy and regulation advocacy in Florida and the Caribbean. Their accomplishments are extensive, ranging from working with Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to implement catch-andrelease-only regulations for tarpon and bonefish to helping establish six nationally protected bonefish conservation zones in the Bahamas. Again, if you are a flats angler, you need to know about and join BTT. Another important project, juvenile tarpon habitat management, is highlighted below and is described by JoEllen Wilson, BTT’s Juvenile Tarpon Habitat Program Manager. JoEllen oversees juvenile tarpon habitat research projects from South Carolina to the Florida Keys, mapping of juvenile tarpon habitat and education to the public through presentations. The main focus of this program is to create a framework that integrates habitat into marine fisheries management plans. JoEllen has worked for BTT since 2009.

JoEllen K. Wilson:

As anglers we are inherent optimists, always believing we’re one cast away from a great fish. The sad truth is that we seem to be past the peak, and our “best catch” stories are more often reminiscing about the good ol’ days of large catches and dozens of shots. Now when we talk about fishing, the fish are fewer and farther between. What changed? Global recreational fish populations are decreasing, and in nearly all cases a main culprit is habitat loss. And to be clear, habitat includes things like seagrass flats and mangroves, but also includes the most important habitat of all—water.

Any enlightened angler knows that healthy fisheries require healthy and abundant habitats and clean water. Coastal habitats are in decline due to development, changes in water flows, and excess nutrients and contaminants entering our waterways. These habitat and water quality problems are causing the populations of our favorite fish, and the fish they eat, to decline. Unfortunately, standard fisheries management focuses on stock assessments, harvest regulations, and closed seasons to regulate fish populations. Absent from marine fisheries management strategy are habitat and water quality. In today’s approach to fisheries management, the solution for fisheries managers seems to be stricter harvest regulations with shorter seasons and tighter slots. This is unsustainable and unfair to conservation-minded anglers. Improving habitat and water quality is how you maintain a productive fishery.

Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT) has proposed a framework for fisheries managers to include habitat in management plans. The first task is to select a species with large cultural and economic importance to rally the support of anglers. It’s also import to have a sound scientific understanding of the species and its life cycle. Next, identify the habitats that are most at risk for human impacts. Natural habitats should be protected at all costs since they are intrinsically the most productive, and already degraded habitats need to be prioritized for habitat restoration. Now we put the plan into action.

We focused on two economically important sportfish. Common snook and Atlantic tarpon, as icons in the fishing community, are well-studied in the scientific literature, and their juvenile habitats are being decimated at an alarming rate by coastal development and outdated infrastructure. Juvenile tarpon and snook both depend on mangrove-lined tidal creeks and other back bay areas early in their life cycle, and it’s estimated that Florida has lost about 50 percent of its mangrove habitat statewide with 85 percent of mangrove habitat only partially available to juveniles on Florida’s east coast. To identify sensitive nursery habitat locations, BTT partnered with the fishing community to find current locations of juvenile snook and tarpon. Unsurprisingly, two thirds of reported nursery habitats were classified as impacted or degraded. If the reported sites were natural, we earmarked them for protection through local and state managers. Degraded nursery habitats were then prioritized for habitat restoration using a ranking system developed by BTT, which includes data layers that account for restoration feasibility, species biology, and habitat connectivity. Each potential restoration site is given a score, and BTT has applied for funding to begin habitat assessment and preliminary design for six potential nursery habitat sites in southwest Florida.

Since we’re proposing habitat restoration as a solution, we first needed to test if restoration could be successful for snook and tarpon nursery habitat. BTT’s habitat restoration research tested three different nursery habitat designs and determined not only is habitat restoration a viable option to combat habitat decline, but also which characteristics of the three designs created the most productive nursery habitat.

Not all restoration requires a complete overhaul to increase habitat, and there are some instances where small connections can make a big impact. BTT is currently overseeing two hydrologic restoration projects in Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Collier County, Fla. The goal of the project is to restore natural tidal flow to 1,000 acres of salt marsh and mangrove wetland that have been disconnected from tidal flow for decades by coastal development. Simply by restoring those connections, these habitats will increase coastal resilience from storm events and the amount of availability of nursery habitat for snook, tarpon, and their prey.

Other avenues that BTT is pursuing to circumvent the lack of habitat in fisheries management is to work directly with county land use planning agencies to guide development near nursery habitats. BTT is creating a Vulnerability Index (VI), with the intent that the VI is implemented by Charlotte County land use planning in southwest Florida. The VI will overlay juvenile sportfish natural and restorable nursery habitats with current and potential land use to determine which locations are most at risk. (For example, a natural or highly feasible restoration site that is at imminent risk for development would rank high on the VI.) This parcel would be flagged in the county land use planning software. Potential actionable steps could be to send the parcel to review by state resource agencies, move the allotted number of housing units to another developed area, or recommend a development design that is less likely to alter nursery habitat quality.

Conversely, a site that is already developed or has low feasibility for habitat restoration would provide a good opportunity to increase the number of housing units that can be pulled from a more sensitive area. In short, the VI will guide development in a way that reduces impacts to nursery habitats.

By creating and implementing this framework, we intend to revolutionize the way fisheries and habitat are managed and return our fisheries to their glory days. At a workshop hosted by fisheries managers, a well-respected guide said that we needed stricter harvest regulations because habitat loss and water quality are out of our control. Limiting harvest is not the answer to fewer fish—fixing the root cause of the problem is the only way to see our fisheries thrive. Anglers must advocate for habitat and water in fisheries management, because without healthy habitats, we won’t have healthy fisheries.