WaterLIFENov04

Water LIFE

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Charlotte Harbor and Lemon Bay Florida

Keeping Boaters and Fishermen Informed

November 2004

OFFSHORE KIngs and More Page 27

INTERVIEW: Charlotte始s New Sea Grant Agent Page 5

FIRST TOURNAMENT Good Fish!

Page 8

Another Track for Charley Page 28

Fishin Frank Back At It!

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Water LIFE

MAGAZINE

November

2004

November

2004

King for a Day

By Mi chael Hel l er Water LIFE Editor I heard the solid old door of a 70s-erapickup slam and I knew in an instant who it was.

“Hey Mike, where are you?”The voice echoed through our open front door out to the back yard where I was working. “Out here, Joe,” I answered. It was my old friend Joe Adobe just in from New Mexico, but before I could warn him Joe had walked around the right side of our house, like he would in the 'old days, when we still lived there, and started for the back yard.

In the two months since hurricane Charlie the bushes have grown a lot and the big, gnarly, bougainvillea vine that was once routinely cut back has now branched out ominously toward where the pool cage used to be.

Back when life was normal, I’d prune that thorny menace to keep a clear path out to the dock, but now our property has taken on a ‘more open’ look with landscaping that is jungle like. Without the cage‚ the path is not as pronounced "Ayeeee! A - la Vey!" Joe rang off a string of Spanish profanities and reeled around in a circle trying to rescue his long sleeved cowboy shirt from the attacking bougenvilla. In the process, his big silver rodeo buckle threw a mirrored reflection onto the dark water of the canal and imme-

2005 - 226 Fundeck

Water LIFE

diately a fish struck the surface where the scintillating light had played. It caught Joe’s attention and mine as well. Fish?

“Still some fish that weren't blown away,” Joe said, taking my hand and sawing it back in forth in an old-western handshake.

I smiled.

“It don't look so bad,” Joe said, standing in front of me surveying the damage and reaching for the cigarette pack in his shirt pocket. “Aren’t you even going to offer me a beer?,” Joe asked.

Almost three months and counting, I said, walking Joe back to the house, stepping in through the hole left where the east side windows blew through. Still no insurance settlement, I said and Joe nodded. “... but the refrigerator still works and we still have cold beer,” I added, bringing the remainder of a six pack out onto the water-warped kitchen counter.

There is a small knee-wall that separates the pool deck from our Florida room and with the windows missing it makes a nice place to sit and look out. We walked over there and sat down.

“I like it better without the cage,” Joe said, putting his beer down on the sill and surveying the white clouds in tropical fall sky.

In a way he was right. The view down to the canal over the water of the pool gave it a disappearing edge effect.

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MAGAZINE

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One of the early kingfish of this season caught on October 28 on Maryʼs Reef

“It’s especially nice without the planks on your lower dock,” Joe observed. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“I see your neighbor's house is up for sale, I thought he was here for the long haul,” Joe said, and I explained that the whole family had been traumatized by the storms and they were moving to Savanna.

“They sold it in a week for the full asking price,” I said and Joe took another swig, reflecting. “They get hurricanes in Savanna too, you know,” Joe said, and I said I know.

Joe took a last long drag on his cigarette and then pinched off the glowing head, letting it fall to the ground.

“Still got fishing rods?” Joe asked, and a little more normalcy returned. We spent

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three days in October, drinking beer and fishing, off the dock, fishing from the boat in the harbor and out in the gulf. We caught some redfish and a few snook on frozen bait and out in the gulf we rustled up some kingfish and a flounder.

“Some folks are going to move out,” Joe observed but there will be plenty of new folks to take their place. This is the tropics: rain and sun and heat and humidity and an occasional hurricane .... or two,..... or three, ....or four,” Joe said.

“I don’t much like all the blue roofs, but the fishing here is still great,” Joe said the day he left. “Blue used to be my favorite color,” I answered, “...until it blew through here.” We laughed and said goodbye.

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Water LIFE

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MAGAZINE

November

2004

Re-Opening mid November – Stop in and see the ʻNEWʼ store

LETTERS TO WATER LIFE

Dear Water LIFE: In response to Cargill Crop Nutrition's recent spills of millions of gallons of toxic wastewater into Florida's natural environment, the Sierra Club asks you to JOIN OUR COALITION of individuals, organizations, and local governments in calling for a state-wide moratorium on all new phosphate projects and permits until specific issues that affect our health and safety are addressed.

Karen Mul cahy Si erra Cl ub, Fl o ri da Offi ce

Mi ke: Read that the horseshoe crabs died due to phosphate spill.

DEP/SWFMD found that there was a serious spill of SEWAGE into the river. The science of this showed that it originated north of Arcadia and came into the river around Brownsville or thereabouts. They think someone dumped the stuff during the storm either intentionally or accidentally. No affirmation as of yet as to how it actually occurred.

Li nds ay Harri ng to n

To Water LIFE It was with great interest that we read your recent article as while you were so articulate to describe the destruction from hurricane Charley you gave equal accolades to "...the wildlife, the birds, the fishing, clean water, unspoiled shore lines, tropical breezes and blue skies....and the osprey".

But there was something you touched on...and didn't seem to realize.

We visited Punta Gorda while on vacation in Bocilla last year. My husband, being a weekend fisherman, wanted to explore and so we drove into Punta Gorda. We had seen everything you described and began falling in love with the area.

All we needed to feel at home was something yet missing.

We stopped at Lashley Marine and while my husband browsed I began talking to someone who worked there. I felt I had found "home" in that conversation. It was Bruce Lashley whom I was speaking with and as my husband became engaged in the conversation he too was taken back by the closeness of the community.

You see, as in your article when you spoke of "...Fishin' Frank, Capt. Rob Moore, Capt. Chuck Eichner and Capt. Ron Blago" so too did Mr. Lashley talk about people in the community we should contact and how we could become involved in helping the community once we were able to move there should we make that decision. Little did Mr. Lashley realize that his bond with the community and caring attitude towards his neighbors...whether residential or potential...told us that this little town of Punta Gorda was one of the best kept secrets possibly in the country.

We live on the southeast coast

of Florida and have had the opportunity to travel throughout most of our great country. I can honestly say that there are but a hand full of these cities, large and small alike, which have the closeness of your community.

So you see ... the truly greatness of Punta Gorda is not only "...the wildlife, the birds, the fishing, clean water, unspoiled shorelines, tropical breezes and blue skies." But also that neighbors care about neighbors, that they care enough about their community to be involved and that they just happen to be lucky enough to live in one of the most beautiful areas of land and water in our state. A truly unbeatable combination.

My husband and I did buy property in Punta Gorda and each time we visit we feel as if we are leaving home as we drive from town. "God willing and the creek don't rise..." we will be able to retire there soon and with enough energy to become part of a neighborhood community which cares about each other and a unique quality of life.

Kathy Mo nag han

Dear Mi ke, The Manatee Test written by Capt. Ron Blago in the October issue of Water life is probably the best single article I've read since the first issue. The 'test' is well presented, and any sane person would have to wonder why we spend so much tax

payer money protecting an animal that is clearly not endangered. What we can never forget though is one fact; if the manatee is downlisted to next category, and even lower than that, there are a number of environmental organizations that will have to find something else to 'save' or go out of business.

Ed Wilson

Water LIFE I don’t know where you people get your information. You printed that Stump Pass (marina) will soon close. Are you on drugs? This is false, and we at Dockside Marine @ Stump Pass want you to print something to retract that statement. We are in business here, and with hurricanes and you guys printing junk, I’d have to say you are the worst of the two evils. You may call me anytime to discuss when and how you will run the next free article on Stump Pass.

Bo b Lers ch

Edi to r no tes : Fishtale Marina at Stump Pass has been sold and the name has been changed from Fishtale Marina to Stump Pass Marina. Mark Lindsey, the new owner assures us he intends to continue to run the property as a marina. We are sorry for any confusion the scuttlebutt may have caused last month and note that according to the new owner they plan to continue operating as a marina for a long time to come. The bait shop at

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Contributing Editors:

Fishing / Environment: Capt. Ron Blago Charlotte Harbor: Capt. Robert Moore Gasparilla: Capt. Chuck Eichner Port Charlotte: Fishinʼ Frank Offshore: Capt. Steve Skevington Technical Advisor: Mike Panetti Sailing Advisor: Bill Dixon Cartoons: Ron Mills Kayaks:Ben Turpin

on the COVER:

Fishin Frank, Blake and Ralf, see page 15

on our WEBSITE:

WWW.charlotteharbormagazine.com

Tide Graphs: For Punta Gorda, Shell Point, El Jobean, Pine Island, Matlacha, Redfish Pass, and Lemon Bay. Weather: Links to all of our favorite weather and radar web-sites.

Back editions: Previous edition pages.

Artificial Reefs: Lat. and Long. for 24 local artificial reefs off Charlotte, Sarasota and Lee Counties.

Manatee Myths: Read the original plan for sanctuaries and refuges, as laid out by the United Nations in 1984 Links to Realtors: Connect with advertis-

November

Water LIFE

2004

Sea Grant Has a New Charlotte County Agent

MAGAZINE

Betty Staugler takes the position held by the late Rich Novak

S taff R eport Elizabeth ‘Betty” Staugler has lived in Charlotte County for 15 years. She is married (her husband works for Sprint) with two boys, a young dog and a 16 year old cat.

Betty lives on the south fork of Alligator Creek. Her family has several boats, two kayaks and two canoes.

They like to camp out on the harbor in their 24-foot TomCat ‘at least one weekend a month.’ She is a graduate of Florida Gulf Coast University and has worked for the DEP’s Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserve, The Charlotte Harbor Environmental Center (CHEC) and for Sea Grant.

In early October Betty was named as the new Sea Grant agent for Charlotte County. Betty has a degree in Environmental Science with a specialty in estuary management and sea grass research. She is 39 years old, a certified advanced scuba diver with scientific research diver certification.

We sat down with Betty to talk about her background and some issues that have been a concern to Charlotte County and Charlotte Harbor boaters and fishermen. Following are her positions: Prime Concerns: Water quality, habitat, sea grass and mangroves.

Artificial Reefs: I know the artificial reef

Fi sh S tocking: We are involved with project Red Start (the redfish hatchery at Sanibel) It’s a community based project that I’d like to see expand up into Charlotte Harbor.

projects are successful and that they need to be continued, but this year we have no funding since our funds from the county have been diverted for harbor clean up.

Boater’s Guide: This has been a Sea Grant project for some time and the guide needs to be updated.

We are out of the latest guides that show all the new manatee zones and we are hoping that we can publish a new guide using outside funds.

Future: I think we are on the right track with Charlotte Harbor, but without a marine biologist on the county’s staff there is nobody who can look at the data and say “wait a minute.” I am not a marine biologist.

Phosphate Mini ng: I have less concern about Phosphate mining than the average person. As far as reclamation goes you can make the land look like it was, but not function like it was.

Manatees: I don’t like

to see boaters compromised. The manatee issue was probably not as much of a problem as it was portrayed to be.

Fi shi ng: My kids fish more than I do. I don’t have the time. I like catch and release fishing.

Is fishing cruel?

Absolutely not.

Boati ng: Oh yes, I’m comfortable pulling a trailer and putting the boat in by myself. We like to travel by boat. We have been to the Bahamas and the Tortugas with our boat. A day on the water is better than any day.

Commerci al Fishing: I plan to continue the work Rich Novak was doing, acting as a liaison between the commercial fishermen and the state’s specialists.

What We Need: A boat ramp along Burnt Store Road is very important and I’d like to see more monofilament recycling.

Reef Balls: I don’t object to reef balls. There has been some resistance to permitting for them, but structure is important to fish. If you don’t have a mangrove shoreline you need to have some structure there, but I think we might need bigger reef balls.

Licensing Boaters: I don’t think we need licensing, but boater education is a good thing. I sent my son to boater education class twice.

S tump Pass: I don’t know that we can leave it alone, but I don’t think a jetty would necessarily be a good thing.

Future Plan: I’m going back to school to get my Graduate Degree in Environmental Science with a concentration in Marine Science.

Other S kil ls: I have GIS skills involving mapping which I want to expand and use.

Ul ti mate Goal: Sea Grant is the link between science and the community.

My job is to study the problems and find applicable local solutions.

26.48.458N 82.22.578W

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North 1/4 Mile

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26.48.241N 82.22.578W e rg Ba

26.46.350N 82.22.700W

26.48.458N 82.22.822W

The Gerald Tremblay Reef

26.46.241 82.22.822W

The Tremblay Reef site, off Gasparilla Pass is one of two sites still open under permit for expansion but funding has apparently been diverted. There could be kingfish on this reef-site this month.

You are what you eat, but you may not be eating what you think you are Chapel Hill N.C. Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill stumbled into an interesting discovery while practicing for a marine science course. The students who were learning how to extract, amplify and sequence DNA were working with samples of red snapper sold by commercial fish wholesalers in an eight state area.

Their work, which had a 17-percent margin of error found that in violation of Federal law, more than 75-

percent of the fish tested and sold as red snapper in eight states were other species.

“How much of this mislabeling was unintentional or fraud is unknown,” said Dr Peter B. Marko, assistant professor of marine sciences at UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences .

“A margin of error of 17percent means that between 60 and 94-percent of the fish being sold as red snapper in the United States are ‘mislabeled’” Marko said. No one knows what they really are.

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Water LIFE

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SAILBOAT WATERFRONT POOL/SPA HOME

1.25 Acres Motivated Seller

Punta Gorda Ranchettes 1.25 acres - Motivated seller, 4/2 plus office, great room, and large eat-in kitchen.

New home just several months old, 2,000 sf under A/C, just 1 mi. off Bermont Rd. for that quiet private country living, horses allowed. Home features wood cabinets w/porcelain tile in kit., tile counter tops and back splash, lazy susan & 7 beautiful ceiling fans, laminated wood floors, phone jacks in every room, bull nose corners, chair railing, recess lighting in every room & much more, MLS#441405, $270,000, Call Ellen.

Looking for that dream home, then look no further. This home located in Collingswood Pointe is on two lots.

Custom built thru-out. 4 BR + 4 Bath, built in 2000, 3585 Sq Ft. Circular drive and 3 plus car garage with plenty of parking space, dock, 9,000 pound boat lift and down the Manchester waterway to the Harbor. Tile roof.(only a few missing from Charley) with gorgeous architecture and landscaping makes this a true beauty, Italian tile on entrance of large columns and double glass front doors open to view of living room and pool/lanai area.

Everything is oversized with large ʻLʼ shape lanai with summer kitchen with cooking/grilling center, U–Line auto ice maker/refrigerator. Pool closet and hose

See the photo on our website:

www.portcharlotte-pgi.com

2004

bib in pool area with great view of lake. A gourmet kitchen to die for, wooden cabinets, solid surface counters, 48 inch sub-zero style ref. Vegetable sink in island and 2 breakfast bars.

Double oven, one is convection also. 2 water heaters and 2 A/C units. 17-inch diagonal tile in all rooms except Berber in bedrooms. A lovely master suite with his and hers walk-in closets and Roman shower, commode closet, 2 vanity sinks, Sec. sys and intercom, niches and plants shelves everywhere. Well and sprinkler system for yard. Home features gas and electric. The list goes on and on. $1,200,000 MLS # 415288 Call Ellen McCarthy

SAILBOAT WATER LOT

Build your dream home

Just 3 minutes to Harbor.

Home in process of being demolished. Seawall, water and sewer capped off and water meter left in place. Build your dream home! Near Grassy Pointe area. MLS#EM300, $399,900, call Ellen.

This One Won't Last

Just Minutes to the Harbor

Oversized 15,480 sq. ft. saltwater canal lot with home damaged by Charley. 3/1 home sold as is. Carport blown away. Price based on lot only. New dock 10 x 20, just minutes to the harbor by way of the Elkcam waterway.

For the buyer wanting a project to work on and build a new home.

PRICED RIGHT. $179,900.

Call Ellen 235-5648

November

MAGAZINE

Sailboat canal home in Beach Complex Area.

Charley left little damage. Roof has some shingles blown off with no leaks and seller will replace roof.

3/2/2, living and family room, large lanai 11 x 24 plus caged patio 9 x 24 off Lanai. New Lennox A/C , refinished glass top range, 2 commodes, all just before Charley. Concrete seawall, dock, davits, water and sewer, irrigation system, deco driveway.

This one won't last. $439,900, Call Ellen 235-5648

See the photo on our website:

www.portcharlotte-pgi.com

November

Water LIFE

2004

Page

MAGAZINE

FISHINʼ FRANKʼS COMEBACK: Pitch in, Pick Up, and Get On With It: S taff Report Charlotte county has been toughing it out. With all three barbeque restaurants destroyed and both live bait shops out of business, what’s a fisherman to do?

As soon as they finish the new roof, I’ll get started on the interior, Frank had promised, and then one day, as if almost magically, rolls of tarpaper appeared standing like soldiers with wide red belts lined up all along the roof. That night Frank called. We’re going to gut the store on Sunday, can you help, he asked. It was an honor to be asked, to be chosen to help.

By the time we arrived at 8 a.m. on Sunday a half dozen of the other chosen were all ready at work and the front of the store was already coming apart.

You have to have known Fishin’ Franks as an establishment to appreciate the collage of décor and as each successive piece of drywall, paneling or pegboard came down (much of which was a layering of all three materials one on top of each other) new revelations appeared. Elect Rubin Askew Governor a pink and blue bumper sticker proclaimed. Askew ran in the early 80s. And a newspaper clipping from the 70s was discovered on the original block wall near the front door. The cover of an early edition of Water LIFE, the one with Robert and a monster bull shark on the cover appeared near the center of the shop, but most importantly in this fishological dig were the pictures that once covered the ceiling. Snapshots, polaroids many of them, had been carefully taken down and stored by Frank in a large clean box before the roof fell in.

At Frank’s, the live bait room survived, tanks and pumps all intact, but the rest of

Rigginʼ Right

Ripping out the guts at Fishinʼ Franks. An old ʻelect Rubin Askew” bumper sticker was on one wall, a 70s newspaper clipping on another

the shop was soaked.

This day, complete with mold and dust that made you choke was in itself a microcosym of life in Port Charlotte. Friends helping friends, dealing with adversity in less than ideal conditions. Making progress with a positive attitude and managing to have a few laughs along the way.

The work went quickly, fixtures came out and Frank at one point observed “Hey, I didn’t even know the tank on the toilet was blue.” It was a telling commentary on the bathroom few ever got to see, but it was also a moment of levity and smiles.

Drywall with patterns of mold that looked like mercator projections of the world fell on the floor and were picked up by a continuing parade of wheel barrows .

Old ceiling tiles with piles of gravel from previous leaks fell to the floor, furring strips and electrical wires. Everything cames out and in four hours the place known as Fishin’ Franks was laid bare, down to its roof joists and block walls.

A week later Frank had the ceiling stained and new pegboard hung on the walls. It won’t be long now.

Down in Punta Gorda, Becky’s bait

shop at Rio Villa is undergoing a similar forced renovation. I should be open by Christmas or the first of the year Becky said while she inventoried her stock. Becky was luckier than Frank, only the roof over the back half of her shop collapsed.

“My inventory was all OK,” Becky said, “but in the bait room the ceiling fell in. We have to tear this all out,” Becky said, I’ll fix things up a little, but I don’t want to make it too fancy. I’ve got guys with bait buckets coming in here and sometimes it tends to get a little wet.”

fromFishinʼFrank

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21942 Edgewater Drive Port Charlotte (941) 206-6280 and

On The Water at Royal Palm Marina 779 West Wentworth Englewood (941) 474-0140

7

MOBILE SERVICE

We May Be Down, But Weʼre NOT Out

We offer MOBILE SERVICE 6 days a week (Mon - Sat) If needed please call (941) 255-3106 or 769-8064 Thanks to all our friends, neighbors and customers for all your help. We Will return to Port Charlotte!!

Almost Like Old Times Page

8

Water LIFE

First Punta Gorda Tournament Since Charley

Above WaterProof Chartsʼ 13.25 pound ʻbig snookʼ

Right: Cleffi helps a redfish to the scale

Below: (L to R) Kevin Kuchcicki, Jay Wither and Dave Carter all had snook over 30inches on their boat

Right: Capt Derrick Jacobsenʼs Famous Craft team won the event with a 17.55 pound two-fish total The top 40 teams in the points standings go on to fish the final shootout on Nov 20-21

Trout fishing will begin to pick up this month as water temperatures begin to drop.

For Trout fishing, the New Old Bay Side Shrimp is the most life like shrimp I have found. With it's life like tail and legs, Trout can not resist the action these baits produce. In murky water conditions use darker colors such as Pumkin/Chartreuse Tail and Avocado Gold. In clear water conditions try the Glow, Clear Gold or Closing Night colors. With the shrimp on a 1/8 ounce jig head, suspended your bait 2-3 feet under a popping cork. Pop your cork every 20 seconds.

Good Luck!

MAGAZINE

S t aff R eport Sixty-six boats, almost 200 fisherman, 35 redfish and 18 snook, it looked like fishing was coming back to normal. If you were willing to travel a little bit. Many of the anglers reported heading south to ‘at least Cape Haze’ and a good number of anglers told of fishing in ‘the northern part of the (Pine Island) sound.’

For Bill Rossi and the Don Gasgarth Team ‘the fish were loaded up on the east side, but for many other anglers ‘fish-quality’ got better the further south you went.

“We fished Pine Island, there are just no decent fish up here,” Capt J.B. Bradshaw said, but it depended who you talked to.

Capt. Darrell Carter gave another slant to the first big tournament since the hurricanes: “Everyone’s been catching flounder, Carter said. “They are just everywhere and

November

2004

huge catfish are all over too,’ Carter observed, solemnly.

Many of the snook weighed in were light in color indicating they were caught on or near the gulf beaches. That could point to a normal migratory pattern in spite of the meteorological events.

“I would say that I am impressed with the amount of quality snook we have weighed in. More than I would have thought,” tournament director Jerry Cleffi said.

Making the weigh-in numbers more impressive was the fact that there was a north wind blowing most of the day, rough water in the morning and a high tide that never really dropped out as many anglers had wanted. Still, the fishing appeared to be good.

“Redfish weren't as plentiful as I would have thought,” one angler commented, “but there sure as hell were some snook around.”

Boats began weighing in fish at noon, but the majority of anglers showed up to weigh in their one redfish and one snook during the last half hour of the event. Just like in the old days.

As has been the case in other area tournaments, Miles Merridith of the WaterProof Charts team weighed in the biggest fish, a whopping 13.25 pound snook that had an inch left to grow.

Continued on facing page

November

2004

Water LIFE

Tournament boats waited to weigh-in inside the protected marina at Fishermenʼs Village

Continued from facing page

“Those guys (the Waterproof Charts team) are on the water all the time and they know where the big fish are,” weighmaster Cleffi said. “It was the biggest snook in this tournament’s history,” he added.

Capt. Derrick Jacobsen and the Famous Craft team weighed in the biggest redfish, a 7.8 pound specimen, and combined it with a 9.75 pound snook to give them a 17.55 pound two-fish-total, good enough for the overall win and the $7,5000 first place check. “This wasn’t like a normal tournament,” Jacobsen said, “Not a lot of anglers were in the calcutta, no one knew about the fishing so it wasn’t an $800 payout it was only $200. The fishing was good though,” he added.

Cleffi has been producing fishing tour-

naments for the last ten years in the Punta Gorda Charlotte County area.

“For next year we have negotiated a deal with the Sunshine Network to have the Flatsmaster’s series aired on TV. I have hired five cameramen and all the cameras will be in waterproof housings and the cameramen have agreed to wade with their equipment to film the tournament. It will make for a real in-your-face event,” Cleffi predicted.

The Flatsmaster series is a three event tournament with a fourth top-40 ‘shootout-style’ event used to determine the overall winner. Baits used in the different events vary between artificials and live bait and the species targeted are (when in season) snook, redfish and trout. The top 40 shootout is November 20-21 at Harpoon Harrys. The public is invited.

MAGAZINE

Page 9

That Same Old Line Water LIFE

Page 10

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MAGAZINE

November

2004

... it may NOT be a good thing

S t aff R eport “You gotta’ send this off to your pals, they are going to want to see this, this shouldn’t be happening.”

With those words Mike Panetti, our technical advisor for mechanical problems took a pocket knife and sliced into a section of fuel line on out 2001 Mercury powered Paramount boat. Panetti then spread the line apart revealing a thin brown inner lining that had seperated from the gray outer casing. Where the line connected to the brass nipple on our FloScan transducer the brown innerlining had turned to translucent green and become flaky and brittle.

“Here’s your missing fuel flow,” Panetti said.

Ever since the hurricanes our boat had been sluggish. Now we had apparently found the culprit, a few small pieces of the inner lining of our fuel line lodged between the paddlewheel in the transducer and the housing, blocking the flow and taking some power off the wide open top end performance.

We wouldn’t have had a clue as to where to start looking had I not noticed the diminishing flow numbers on the FloScan’s gauge.

“I had seen a similar problem several years ago with another brand line, they had to do a major recall and it caused all sorts of problems,” Panetti said.

“Could this come from a fuel contamination problem?” I asked, but Panetti wasn’t sure.

Back in late July the Shell gas stations in our area went to a new formulation for their product and a number of local boaters experienced problems with their outboards that were traced back to the ‘newly formulated” shell gas. The Shell factory representative in Fort Myers had gone so far as to authorize repairs to a number of outboards at that time and Shell allegedly subsiquently reformulated their product to solve the problem. We buy all our boatgas at the Shell station down the block so maybe we were affected as well. “There is no way to know for sure, now,” Panetti said, but I’d rec-

ABOVE: The line shown here has had itʼs inner liner crack and flake away, the liner (below) is shown separated from the casing

ommend that local boaters unfasten a section of their fuel line and give it a quick visual check,” he added.

“If the line looks like yours it should be replaced.”

Origonally we had thought the problem in our boat was due to fuel contamination or a clog but when we pumped out our fuel tank and disassembled the carburettors we began to look elsewhere.

Also on that maintenance ticket was a water pump replacement.

Our boat had been running progressively hotter since before the storm and now, even with the water temperatures dropping we were still running up near the 3/4 mark on the tempereature gauge. Water pressure had dropped to around 5 pounds.

Panetti pulled the bolts that secure the lower unit and popped it loose. “I’ll take it over to my shop and give you a call when it’s all apart,” he said, knowing we like to look at stuff.

Before the storms Panetti worked out of a big two-bay shop just north of Edgewater on US 41, now, until his shop is put back together he is working as a ‘mobile mechan-

ic,’ doing shop work out of his home garage and site work out of his truck. “You make do,” he said.

A couple of hours later Panetti called and we drove over to look at the guts of my water pump.

Water pumps on boats are funny.

It seems like the factory pumps installed when the motor is built last for 300 to 400 hours, but then once the pump is replaced they are only good for 100 to 150 hours, even when the pump and the housing and the wear plate are all replaced with factory parts. If you do a quickee repair and only change the impellar life expectancy is much lower.

In our case, a gasket below the wear plate had blown out. We theorized it was due to jumping the boat out of the water and getting a hard pulse going in the cooling system.

Panetti replaced all the water pump parts and the motor went back together. End result, 15 to 18 pounds of water pressure and a temperature gauge that runs where it is supposed to. “That’s whay the factory recommends you replace your water pump at the 100 hour mark,”

November

2004

Water LIFE

P a g e 11

MAGAZINE

Comparison: Florida vs Louisiana for Redfishing

By Capt. Robert Moore Water LIFE Senior Guide

Fishing in a nationwide tournament trail for redfish has more than just one aspect of competition. The obvious is the competition between the anglers fishing in these tournaments. Over the last couple of years I have seen a friendly (and sometimes not so friendly) back and forth verbal competition between states as to who had the better redfish fishery. It seems that the majority of the smack talk over internet chat rooms and message boards is between Florida and Louisiana.

After finishing my first full year with the Redfish Cup, a year that took us along the Gulf Coast to Louisiana and Texas, I experienced each fishery and came to my own conclusions as to who has the better fishery. I am not going to get all scientific on you, I am just going to give you my honest opinion from what I experienced first hand.

I often hear that Louisiana has twice the population of redfish than Florida. In my opinion this is false. I feel they are pretty close, but Florida holds a larger population of fish. Louisiana’s coastline is a fraction of the size of Florida. I will say that it is impressive that Louisiana has the numbers of redfish they do in such a small area. This is what gives many people the impression that there is a greater number

of redfish in Louisiana than in Florida.

The other argument you hear is that Louisiana redfish are easier to catch.

Overall this is probably true. Again, no scientific evidence here, but I truly believe that most redfish in Louisiana are only caught once. In other words I feel the practice of catch and release is much more prevalent in Florida than in Louisiana. In Louisiana they catch them and they keep them, by the cooler-full. I came to the conclusion that Louisiana fish are easier to catch after watching an angler dangle his lure two feet in front of him as a redfish swam by his boat completely oblivious.

Fellow anglers agree that there are many redfish in Louisiana that have never seen a boat, probably due to their vast marshes, therefore the Louisiana redfish are completely inexperienced with what’s about to happen to them. It’s like a child that has never felt the heat from a stove and is not afraid to put his hand on it. In Florida after a redfish has experienced a hook in its jaw they become more aware of what they are about to eat. Some might think this is a little far fetched, but many of my coanglers share the same sentiment.

Something that cannot be disputed is that the redfish in Louisiana are larger than the ones in Florida. A 27 inch Louisiana redfish more than likely will weigh more than a 27 inch red in Florida. Tournament

Redfish Cup anglers ready to fish at Lake Charles

results year after year will support this.

The reason for this is no doubt due to the unbelievable amount of baitfish and shrimp they have compared to Florida.

Louisiana redfish will literally gorge themselves day and night therefore weigh more on a consistent basis.

If I had to pick the aspect that I like the most about fishing in Louisiana compared to Florida it would be the number of bull reds they have there. You don’t have to target them offshore or any differently than the smaller siblings, they just appear when you least expect it. To give an example, while fishing in Venice, Louisiana my partner Bob Boudreau released a 5-pound redfish and 2 minutes later hooked and released a redfish that buried my 30-pound Boga Grip. The 30 plus pound redfish cruise the same shorelines and eat the

same baits as do the smaller ones. We saw this throughout Louisiana all year. This is not a common occurrence in Florida.

All in all, both states offer terrific redfish action. To say one fishery is more productive than the other can’t be done in my opinion. It will just depend on how you prefer to go about catching a redfish as to whether one location is better than the other. As for me, I won’t be packing the family up and heading north any time soon. My redfish paradise is only two miles away.

Tight Lines!

You can reach Capt. Robert Moore for fishing information or to book a charter fishing trip at (941) 637-5710 or (941) 628-2650 or via e-mail at tarponman@comcast.net

Water LIFE

Page 12

Fishing the Hurricane Haircut

MAGAZINE

November

2004

There are still some nice fish around

By Capt. Chuck Ei chner Water LIFE Gasparilla Editor Leaving the dock with expectations to prove Charlotte Harbor fishing was getting back to normal was my goal this day.

Prior trips within 7 weeks of the first hurricane were tough for me, but it was mid October which is usually as good as it gets.

No bait catching this day as my goal was strictly working with artificial lures.

My wife Joyce and I entered the harbor with 3-4 foot swells and a northeast wind at our back heading towards Cape Haze. Not exactly great conditions, but the sun was high and we had a strong incoming tide.

A leeward bank in Turtle Bay had good water against the mangroves so we each tied a spoon on and began casting. Fifteen minutes of rhythmical cadence our lures splashed down and quickly retrieved in the dark water. A nice cast against an overhanging root met with a boil and surge towards my spoon and an aggressive redfish slammed it! Yeee– haaa!! A powerful 5pound redfish pulled drag and fought its way boatside. Nice start! Nothing is better for your confidence then a quick fish to start the day.

Back with the trolling motor easing down the shore we flung lures for another half hour with no bites. The shoreline is very different now. There are very few overhanging bushes requiring a masterful side arm cast to the inner most roots.

Now, you can target fish at the absolute bank just like fishing tree blow-downs in a river or lake for largemouth. I was feeling right at home since I had chartered and tournament-fished largemouth bass for 15 years on the tidal waters of the Chesapeake.

Our mangroves got a ‘hurricane haircut’ which exposes the inner most roots and cuts that previously were hard or impossible to reach or even see. To me this is good news and bad news. The good news is that any fish using the structure is reach-

able for the most part on high tides. The bad part is the shade of the overhangs is missing which were fish magnets for concentrating reds and snook. The variations in the overhang would also concentrate the fish in specific honey-holes that are largely non-existent now.

Heading just inside Bull Bay we fished a small creek outflow that I had never seen before due to the trim back of the mangroves. Joyce hooked 2 small redfish in short order and I had several bumps on my silver spoon while her gold spoon got eaten. Then, I finally got slammed and a catfish came aboard. For sure, the catfish faired out well in the hurricane churned waters of Charlotte Harbor. Every trip out they have ‘blessed’ my line since hurricane Charley. It was time to move.

As the day progressed I fished bars, points and potholes. There seemed to be small bait pods roving in the back of Bull Bay and ladyfish were crashing into the bait. Joyce pitched a small in-line spinner and quickly got high jumps out of these hard fighters. Boating three ladyfish was enough to mess up the boat and we moved again.

Casting deeper potholes only produced one trout on a lead jig tipped with a plastic shad tailed body. Working longer bars produced very little except for a small flounder which ate the trout lure. There was a 2 foot chop in Turtle Bay which may have messed the bar fishing up.

Changing lures frequently was part of the equation for this day because the water clarity varied from very murky to tannic clear. Hoping to find that magical lure the fish could not resist didn’t happen, but we sure gave it a try. Seven rods loaded with 7 different lures made it easy to fire different offerings along the mangroves.

Later in the day, several more small redfish found their way to spoons of different varieties. Except for the first nice redfish

Joyce Eichner with a nice 5-pound redfish.

and one other 5 pounder, all the other fish were juveniles, which mostly was the pattern for the day. Great sport none-the-less and we had lots of hits until the lower part of the outgoing tide.

Moving to the outside of Gallagers cut, we probed the water for Jack crevalle but none showed up. A quick trip to a known snook spot rewarded us with a 25-inch snook which viciously attacked a silver spoon at the creek mouth. Heading back to the east side we saw small white terns dipping on the outside of Icehouse bar. Going in closer for a look there were huge splashes from fish on top of the bar. I guessed they were big jacks and we cautiously approached. Several big boils next to the boat before my topwater bait was tied on left me watching the action reappear 300 yards away ... and so it went. We just couldn’t catch up with these fish. Heading back to the barn, we saw a whitewater froth with birds diving directly off of Hobbs Point. This reminded me a of a bluefish blitz on the Atlantic with 15 pound fish.

Shutting the boat down 100 yards from the action I let the wind drift the boat towards the maylee. Water was spraying into the air and big fish were mashing bait

Inset: Lures used that day

in only 2 feet of water! As I was just outside casting range I flung my topwater chugbug and the water went quiet. Gone!

That quick, it all stopped and only a white froth was left as evidence. Even a quiet approach still disturbed these feeding fish.

I never knew exactly what they were, but would guess big jacks. A few more casts just to see if there were a few straglers met with a small slurp on the chugbug and a catfish came aboard. A small little guy that was hard to handle and spiked my finger with a pectoral fin. I got a sting from that cast, but not the mash and smash of my plug like I hoped. Calling it a day, it was clear to me that Charlotte Harbor fishing is back. With about 5 hours of actual casting we boated 8 reds, 2 snook, a trout, flounder and several ladyfish. There were a lot of short strikes on lures, so I suspect that whitebait would have produced significantly more fish. But then, nothing beats a gamefish hitting a lure!

Capt. Chuck Eichner operates Action Flats Backcountry Charters and can be found online at: www.backcountry-charters.com or for a guided fishing trip call 941-505-0003.

November

2004

ANALYSIS

By Capt Ron Bl ago Water LIFE Staff It's now official. Charlotte County has begun negotiations to purchase the 1.6 acre, Rocky Creek Marina for approximately $2.8 million dollars. A representative of the county's Park and Recreation Department presented some plans to the Marine Advisory Commission for the property which is located off of Placida Road on Ainger Creek.

The county may tear down the existing marina and use the land for public parking.

It is hoped this will provide at least 30 additional parking spaces for boaters.

Another plan is for the county to maintain and operate the existing boat storage facility, which has room for approximately 50 boats, while still keeping the boat ramp and some limited parking open to the public.

The last plan involves splitting the property keeping part a public boat ramp and leasing the marina section to a private company.

Although there is a desperate need for new public boat ramps in Charlotte County, the folks at Parks and Rec. may have a tough job selling this plan to the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) and the general public.

The first problem is that the boating public doesn't receive anything new for the money. If the county goes through with the purchase it will become the fourth owner of the property in the last 10 years. Whether it is private or public, it's still the same boat ramp and boat storage.

Lets face it, the public access Aingers Creek boat ramp is only 100 yards south of the marina. If you are looking for boat storage facilities, you have Royal Palm Marina, Marine Dynamics, Cape Haze Marina, Marine Max, Stump Pass and Palm Island Marine all close by on Lemon Bay. Price seems to be an issue. As we all know, waterfront property has sky rocketed out of site in the last few years, but Rocky Creek Marina has really hit the jackpot when it comes to increased value.

The property was last purchased in Dec. 1998 for $600,000 and according to the county appraisers office in 2003 the just value, certified assessed value and taxable value were all at $519,228. In April 2003, property taxes of $10,558.90 were paid.

Now, I'm not an expert in real estate or finance, but for a piece of land to go from a half million to almost $3 million in a few years, seems like a pretty good profit for somebody.

When a property goes from private to public ownership there are certain costs involved, namely lost tax revenue. The property as assessed now at $519,228 would require that each of those 30 parking spots to bring in at least $365 per year to cover the lost property taxes and if the prop-

Water LIFE

MAGAZINE

Rough Road For Rocky Creek Marina Purchase

erty was assessed at its $2.8 million dollar asking price, then each of those spaces would have to be occupied 8.5 hours a day, 365 days a year to recoup the lost taxes.

That's not going to happen.

There are many other probl ems the county has to address before thi s deal goes through.

The existing boat ramp is way to steep for the average boater to use. The water is too shallow in the winter months – sometimes one foot or less. Residents on Ainger Creek have for years asked to have this area dredged, but were always told that permits would never be issued. Does this situation change just because the county buys some land on the creek?

Now, I hate to mention this, but Ainger Creek from the Placida Road bridge to the ICW is a slow zone because of manatee protection. On the north side of the channel is a Federal Manatee Protection Zone and on the south side of the channel is a State Manatee Protection Zone. I wonder how the manatee protection folks will react when they find out the county wants to put in a public boat ramp in the middle of one of their sacred manatee habitats and then dredge the access canal.

Whether this deal goes through or not is up to the BOCC. Parks and Recreation have already sold themselves on the idea.

After all, the money for the purchase is available from the 1-percent sales tax rollover which voters approved last year. I guess they're afraid that if they don't spend the money now they might have to allocate it to help pay for the hurricane clean up.

Before the county commits to buying Rocky Creek Marina, I hope they make a real effort to locate and buy a piece of waterfront property off of Burnt Store Road where the county really, really, really needs

Page 13

Give the Gift of a CHARTERED FISHING TRIP SUPPORT YOUR

LOCAL FISHING GUIDES

Page 14

Water LIFE

MAGAZINE

November

2004

Lighted Boat Parade in Punta Gorda Scheduled for December 11 IF THERE ARE ENOUGH BOATS call Donna at 639-3720 and sign up WE NEED THIS EVENT TO HAPPEN!!

Fishin Again November

2004

Water LIFE

with Fishin Frank

By Fi shi n’ Frank Water LIFE Port Charlotte Often we have talked about fishing being stress relief. Man, could you think of a time when this has been more useful, with our houses and businesses damaged or ruined. Talk about stress.

Well, this week I went fishin’ and dam, it did feel good. My good friend Capt. Blake Beerbower, hauled me, Robert, Ralf, and Ranier, (two good friends of mine visiting from Germany) out on the harbor.

The first thing we had to do was find bait. In November, it will be much easier to find bait because Fishin’ Franks will be open again and we’ll have live shrimp (plug for store reopening), but on our trip out this time we had to catch our own bait.

After looking all over the upper harbor Blake and I ran south and finally found bait on the back side of Devilfish Key. Watching the depth finder, the bait appeared in 5 feet of water. Then Blake used canned cat food to chum the bait to us. With 20 or 30 throws of the cast net (it wasn’t easy) we had our bait. This took one and 1/2 hours start to finish. Live wells loaded, Blake and I headed back to pick up the rest of the guys.

Blake had been ripping redfish out by the intracoastal, however I wanted to see the east side of the harbor. I had run the outside of the bar, but this time Blake took us inside. What a difference.

Trees, tree limbs, aluminum, junk, all scattered all along the once clear flat. People can tell you, but seeing is understanding. Consider this though; one thing all fisherman know, is that fish like structure and that is where Blake took us, to structure.

Anchoring his 23 foot charter boat, just inside the bar with mangrove snags all around us on the flat, we tail hooked pinfish with a split shot about 2-feet up from the hook. A light breeze at our backs, we cast the pinfish in to a trough. Ten pound mono line makes fishing close to the snags tricky, but if you want more bites mono is the way to go.

Ralf, who has visited me several times before, knew what to expect and when his line took off he set back on that redfish like a pro. Ranier on the other hand had no idea what he was dealing with when his line took off at almost the same instant as Ralf’s. All he had was a tight grip on the rod and wide eyes as a redfish peeled off his line. Straight to the snags his redfish went, but with Blake coaching him he got his rod tip up and a snag was avoided. A little skill and a lot of luck.

Ralf was playing his steady pressure and with the rod tip kept high, his red came to the boat for pictures – a nice 23 incher. Ranier was not so lucky on the second snag, but what a grin he had. Hey, doubles right off. Not bad! But it did not stop there.

I cast back in, hooked up a smaller redfish (maybe 19-inches) a little down and dirty with the rod and I was releasing him. How do I know it was a him? The males make a drumming sound, I would assume it is a warning when they are mad or a love call when they are in a different mood. He was drummin’ and this time I assume he was upset.

Blake re-rigged Rainer’s rod and cast it out with his patented long distance throw. Ralf was back in the water with another pinfish. Something was yelled in German and Ralf again had a nice redfish boiling the water. This one was big! At least 28 inches and an easy nine

Page 15

MAGAZINE

pounder. On 10 pound mono that’s a workout, but Ralf released his fish, unharmed.

Rainer hooks another one, Rainer loses another one.

We had a little lull in the action, long enough to pick on him for being 0 for 2. Then, wham, wham, wham!

Triples – Ralf, Blake and Rainer all hooked up! All three in the boat for pictures. Ranier got it back and forth and around the boat. Rainer got his picture.

Then Ralf’s line went skyward with the first snook of the day and his first ever-keeper. Thirty two inches of fighting and jumping snook, Ralf was grinning from ear to ear. Then he released the fish. Robert, watching from the back of the boat and enjoying the show, quietly released 3 trout and two redfish.

Looking to our right I could see the water moving.

Just as I saw it Blake saw them too, a school of reds coming our way feeding across the flat. Casting our lines ahead of the school so as not to spook them we were on them.

Fish on! One, after another, after another, we hooked up. What a day! Over 20 redfish, 2 snook and several trout. What a day to start over on Charlotte Harbor.

I suppose not every trip will be like this one, but I can hope, and the good ones are the only trips to remember anyway. If you’d like to fish with Capt.

Blake call him at 941-628-9174 Epilogue Needless to say the last few weeks have been, strange, exhausting, and expensive. For 20 years and five days, I would go to work at Fishin Franks and in all those years I don’t remember the store being closed for a whole day. Holidays, birthdays, even Christmas, we were always there. The feeling of loss – not to have Fishin Franks open – was kinda' summed up by the many people who stopped me on the streets and said “it just isn’t Port Charlotte without Fishin Franks.” Well, true or not, thank you. By the way, we saved hundreds of pictures from the ceiling and we will find a way of getting them back up in the ‘new’ store and it won’t be long.

Special Thanks to Laishley marine, Action Craft boats, Chucks custom carpentry, Tuffys auto repair, Do-all rental and Consolidated electric.

Thanks to Darrell, Cayle, Lee, Joe, Vinnie, Norm, Blake, JR, Mike Heller, and many more people, and of course a big thanks to Robert. Due to all their work, effort, and donated time Fishin’ Franks will reopen sometime in the middle of this month. See ya then.

Thanks from a very grateful, Fishin Frank.

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Goinʼ Slow in the Fast Lane

Page 16

By Mi chael Hel l er Water LIFE Editor One guy had a redfish tattooed on his tooth. How much money does that take?

They had the camera right up in his face and his mouth was wide open like this.

Gary McKenzie circles his thumbs and forefingers to simulate a camera lens and then opens his own mouth wide.

Terry Brantley groans a sour note from his position sprawled out on the deck of their Hewes and we all laugh. It’s a laid back Saturday morning and we are on the Peace River at the Shell Creek dam. The tides are lousy-low and getting lower all day and this is the morning after the first

Water LIFE

cold front passage of the season. We are fishing artificials. It’s not been easy, but this is our first chance to talk and these are the two guys from south Florida who came in second overall in the Redfish Cup which wrapped up a week before at Lake Charles Louisiana.

“We might have won the Punta Gorda round of the Redfish Cup this year, we were on some really nice fish, but we had chummed them up with live bait for the kids in the Kids Cup and the rules of the Redfish Cup stated it would be illegal for us to fish there the following week during the tournament,” Mc Kenzie said.

McKenzie and Brantley are serious fishermen in spite of their laid back approach.

November

MAGAZINE

They have been fishing together competitively for the last four years.

“We’ve known each other for ever. I used to fish with Gary’s uncle Cecil when I was a kid. We’d put in at Hobbs Point and string a net around, beating the water with a paddle scaring the fish into the net when it wasn’t illegal. It was a lot of fun back then and Cecil was making a living at it. But I always wanted to fish more with a rod and reel,” Mckenzie said. “I’m from Bartow and Terry is from Arcadia,” he added.

At Lake Charles, we had found about 100 fish back in a hole, but we couldn’t get them to eat anything. It was way back under a trestle and we couldn’t get the 21foot Triton (the boat all the finalists are required to fish out of) back in there.

“After about a week of prefishing we finally figured it out,” Brantley said. “We had to wait for the tide to drop out and let the fish come to us.”

“We’re basically all sight fishing,” Brantley said. “We’re putting the bait right there within the length of the leader,” and while Gary admits he always has a reel

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2004

rigged up with 8-pound mono at the ready somewhere, Terry is strictly a braided line kind of guy. “If you ever catch me with mono on one of my reels, just shoot me,” Brantley says. “The only problem with braided line is that it tends to straighten out the hooks when you set it,” he added.

These guys are also bass fishermen and their aggressive hooksets show their style every time, but in spite of their hooksets they fancy themselves as ‘finesse’ fishermen.

“We start out with Gary throwing a top water plug like a Junior Spook or a Skitter Walk and I cover the water throwing a spoon. I like the Johnson weedless gold spoon in a 1/2 ounce weight,” Brantley said.

It’s different at each stop. In Venice Louisiana you can run right up on the fish and drop a line right on them. In Titusville the fish are so spooky you have to crouch down when you cast so you don’t scare them with your shadow.

“When we pre-fish we start at the boat

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November

Water LIFE

2004

ramp and work our way out. We usually fish so close to the ramp that the other boats just blow by us.”

“On tournament day our strategy was to slow down and fish our fish. During the week before the tournament we came up with a target weight that we felt would get us into the top ten.”

“We said 12.5 to 13 pounds and when we get that combined weight then we’re getting off those fish. It was our goal to find a spot that would hold out for three days of fishing,” Gary added.

“Each day we caught just what we

thought we would need to make the top five,” Brantley said of their strategy. “The plan was not to put too much pressure on our area until the last day. We could have easily caught a bunch of fish the first two days, but we just caught six or seven, saving the best for last.”

The plan worked like a charm. The anglers caught 13.37 pounds on Thursday by 10:00 a.m. and then eased off. On Friday, they slipped into the top five cut with an early catch of 12.41 pounds.

But on the final day they the fished the area for all it was worth, bringing in the

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heaviest limit of the week. They relied on 5-inch Bass Assassin soft plastics (baby bass and pumpkin with a chartreuse tails) rigged on 1/16-ounce Mustad hooks designed for Texas-rigging.

The team was sight fishing reds the first two days when the weather was sunny and calm. When the rain and wind blew in and spotting the fish became much more difficult they resorted to looking for tailing reds.

“On the second day we had the heaviest weight of the whole tournament, 14.37 pounds, then the Watts brothers came in with 14.9 pounds, and on the final day Dr. Tommy Lomonte of Stafford, Texas and Jimmy West of Port Bolivar brought in the two heaviest redfish, weighing 15.20 pounds, to win the Redfish Cup. McKenzie and Brantley came in second.

Back in Charlotte County, we threw a couple more times around the Shell creek dam. At one point we had a nice redfish on, a surprise to us all this far upstream and in such fresh water, but we lost him in some submerged branches and finally we just called it a day.

Coming down the river we met up with JR Witt who had Kids Cup finalist Ryan Case with him. We drifted aimlessly two boats together, downstream from the I-75 bridge, making small talk and talking about another upcoming tournament. Then we raced back to the beach complex, cutting ‘S’ turns around each other with

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MAGAZINE

motors trimmed up high, trying to drench the other boat with a rooster tail.

We pulled into the beach complex and JR put his boat up on the beach and leaned back, turning around to talk to us.

Gary saw the opening. Nonchalantly he swung his Hewes around and trimmed up the motor, kicking it into gear with the prop half out of the water and pointed at JR’s boat. Ryan ducked and JR bolted from the boat like a hurdler as one last heavy shower of harbor water rained down.

Except for the fact that Brantley and McKenzie were $16,000 richer, it was just another day on the water, local guys, acting like little kids, running their boats, catching fish and having fun.

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Page 17

Water LIFE

Page 18

Fiber Glass

November

MAGAZINE

On the Line

2004

Fishing with Capt Ron Blago

The good news is that fishing is pretty good.

By Capt Ron Bl ago Water LIFE Executive Staff Things are slowly getting back to normal.

After going through the worst hurri21? and 29? Open Custom 14? cane season of my life, people are finally Fiberglass Repair & Supplies ¥ Bottom Painting ¥ Detailing & removing the plywood from the windows Family Owned and and moving back home; or at least to Operated with over what's left of it.

941.628.2588 50 Years Experience Whidden Industrial It will take Charlotte County a long Your local SW Florida time to fully recover from hurricane Licensed 100-Ton Captain Charley. Debris, piles of broken trees and construction materials are still stacked up on every street waiting to be removed to the local landfills.

Unfortunately much of the debris has been blown into Charlotte Harbor and the adjacent canal systems. Charlotte County We use only genuine InterLux bottom paint has cost estimates of between $8 to $32 million dollars to clean up the waterways.

Fortunately, the US Department of boat/trailer $20/month Agriculture will be coordinating and funding most of the clean up efforts.

Unfortunately, the county is still short of money so all marine related project approved in this years budget have temporarily been put on hold until the recovery is completed.

Route 771, 1 mile south of 776 941-698-1938 Most of our public boat ramps survived with only minor damage and boaters are slowly getting back onto the water. Now is a good time to support your local fishing guides. Most of them haven't had a trip in two months. Guides were some of the first of the many people who lost their jobs due to hurricane Charley.

Unemployment in Charlotte County jumped from 3.5 to 7-percent in one day.

The good news is that fishing is pretty good. November is always a good month.

Cool mornings and warm days with water temperatures in the mid 70s.

Bay and back country fishing is real strong with snook, redfish and trout feeding heavily, particularly in the early morn-

Storage

ing. That is the prime time to use a top water plug in shallow water. Some of the biggest fish of the year are caught this way.

Remember trout season is closed here during November and December which doesn’t leave many species for the Holiday fishermen who arrive around Christmas (snook and redfish are also out of season in December) The offshore fishing is really starting to pick up. Kingfish are already being caught just a few miles off of Englewood beach.

An unusually high number of black tip and black nose sharks are being caught close to shore. If you get tired of trolling for kings, just shut off your motor and throw out a few rods with chunks of mullet for bait. If there are any sharks in the area they will find you.

Now is the time to get ready for grouper. As the water gets cooler, grouper move in closer to shore. First to show up usually are the black grouper. Remember that with all the hurricanes we have had lately a lot of our bottom structure has moved or been covered up. Slow trolling with deep diving plugs around some of your favorite spots will quickly tell you if the fish are still there.

Looks like I volunteered to do another Fishing College at the Englewood Sports Complex. This years class meets for two hours each Tuesday for six weeks, starting Jan. 4th. The cost is $30 for the total course. For more information call the ESC at 861-1980.

Now that I've survived hurricane season, I hope I have the strength to survive tourist season.

Capt. Ron Blago can be reached for fishing information or to book a charter fishing trip at (941) 474-3474

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Water LIFE

A Tour of One Phosphate Mine November

2004

By Bi l l Di xon Water LIFE Sailing Editor I recently took a tour of phosphate mining operations hosted

by Cargill public relations. I enjoyed myself, learned a lot and came away less negative about mining and more negative about fertilizer manufacturing than I was before the tour.

Phosphate fertilizer is produced in a two step process.

First step is mining the phosphate ore. Giant draglines strip off 10 to 50 feet of trees, grass, and ordinary soil covering thousands and thousands of acres to get at the ore which they call ‘the matrix.’ This ore is about one third phosphate, one third sand, and one third clay. It has a certain amount of natural radioactivity. The ore is washed with high pressure water (think placer mining for gold in those old westerns), and pumped to the sorting/screening machinery. The phosphate rock, sand and clay are separated mostly by screening and filtering.

Phosphate ore is radioactive and much of the radioactivity is captured by the clay as is a lot of water. The clay/water mix is

pumped over 50 foot tall dikes into settling ponds. Water is recycled to wash more ore. The EPA requires these small radioactive mountains to remain in place forever. I was told (not on this tour) that clay was what turned the Peace River white in 1971.

After they are full of clay and dried out they are planted with vegetation. Some citrus orchards have been successfully planted on them and other crops are being experimented with. While planted, this portion of the mined area is not what I would call ‘reclaimed.’ It is not suitable for lakes or wetlands or construction as the clay will slip and move in wet weather.

The sand is put back, and covered with the topsoil which was stripped off. Plants and trees are added. Reclaimed land has lots of lakes, streams and low wetlands because two thirds of the ore was not put back into the earth.

Some scientists say that the plants and animals in the area after reclamation are not the same since the elevation and the ability of the land to hold water are not the same after the phosphate and the clay are removed.

MAGAZINE

The phosphate rock is shipped to the chemical plant for fertilizer manufacture. This is the really nasty part. We were not given a tour of this, and most questions on the subject were diverted as this was a mine tour. The phosphate rock is first mixed with MOLTEN SULFUR and water. Nasty stuff, but wait, it gets nastier. The sulfuric acid formed dissolves the phosphate rock forming phosphoric acid and gypsum (calcium sulfate, like what is in drywall). The phosphoric acid is mixed with AMMONIA to form ammonium phosphate fertilizer.

The gypsum and acidic water is pumped over tall dikes to ‘gypsum stacks’. These are the nasty buggers that leaked acid into Tampa Bay and recently into the Peace River. They are much taller than clay settling ponds, not landscaped, and look like moonscapes. When we have a lot of rain and/or hurricanes, they overflow. When we don’t, the acid evaporates into the air.

Improvements have been made in Gyp stack design and control, but the response to questions about the Peace River spill was not

Page 19

Phosphate makes things grow, like this algae bloom in the creek just downstream from a Bartow gypsum stack

comforting. They ranged from ‘whaddya gonna do when there’s a hurricane?’, to ‘we did everything we were required to.’

My favorite answer was ‘good thing there was a lot of water (in Tampa Bay - ed.) to dilute the

acid.’ Sure as hell there will be more spills in the future.

Bill Dixon is the Water LIFE Sailing editor. He can be reached at: 637-2694 or at dixonwj@comcast.net

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Page 20

November

MAGAZINE

2004

ScuttleButt Sometimes Unsubstanciated ... but often true

The US Department of Agriculture will foot the lionʼs share of the $3 to 10 million dollar cleanup of Charlotte Harbor, but it is unclear what boat they will use.

Knowing this Community and given a place to drop off trash picked out of the harbor, boaters in this area could take it upon themselves to organize and help clean up Charlotte Harbor. If only the Parks Department would set up dumpsters at the areaʼs boat ramps.

The Website NFL.com and The Weather Channel have teamed up to contribute to hurricane relief efforts.

They will donate $1 for every visitor to the website shown below (for up to 100,000 visitors for a maximum $100,000 donation) by November 18th, Money goes to the United Way Hurricane Response Fund. Please encourage all your friends and family to visit this site! www.nfl.com/features/relief

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Small Plane, Big Mistake A small plane was chased down over Englewood. Don at Rayʼs Bait and Tackle tells us of two fully armed military jets intercepting a small plane right overhead his shop on Dearborne Street at an altitude of under 1,000 feet. “The military jets were fully armed,” Cessna said, explaining that the private plane it was intercepting had apparently strayed into closed airspace at Fort Myers where the President was speaking.

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Dead Boat Ramp In spite of the Englewood Fire Departmentʼs voice against it, the Tom Adams bridge boat ramp is now officially closed, fenced and paved over. We have the Countyʼs Parks and Recreation Department to thank for that.

White Paper Report If small pieces of insulation were the nemesis that filled

Learn new skills or hone your existing ones.

the air during the storm and the landscape afterwards, the hurricanesʼ new aftermath appears to be 81/2 by 11 inch sheets of white copy machine paper from agencies involved with the disaster.

Paperwork from FEMA, the SBA, Insurance companies, contractors and private adjuster now litters almost every household.

Jumpin Cudas A 30 pound barracuda jumped into a boat off Tybee Island Georgia and bit an angler on the deck.

According to the Coast Guard, the victim, a 65 year old fisherman, was aboard a commercial fishing boat when it happened. The boat owner said ʻthe fish wasnʼt hooked or anything.ʼ The man was treated at a near by hospital and released.

Expensive Clams A Cedar Key man was charged with stealing $40,000 worth of clams from an aquaculture farm in Cedar Key. The men reportedly had 412 bags of clams when they were caught.

Additional charges included trespassing and tampering with a witness. The men face 11 year sentences and $10,000 fines each.

sHELL Gas This one slipped by publication during the hurricanes, if you had checked Boating.com you would have known about a sulphur problem in Shell gas that caused damage to Yamaha motors. Shell stood behind their product and paid repair bills to the tune of $1,000 to some Charlotte County Yamaha owners. The regional Shell official is in Ft. Myers can be reached at (979) 324-0415. You must have used Shell gas exclusively.

Everyoneʼs Happy Out of the area contractors have been hiring our local guides to take them fishing on weekends, some already say they want to move here when the area is rebuilt.

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Housing Since The Storms

November

Water LIFE

2004

MAGAZINE

This is NOT an Ad

1973 with 1,296 square feet. It sits on a canal with

$149,300 and 7 months later, after Charley, it was put back on the market in September for $256,900.

Aside from the very obvious physical effects Hurricane Charley had on Charlotte county and the surrounding areas, it seems to also have affected attitudes toward property values. Waterfront property prices have been on a fast track in SW Florida for the past couple of years and Charley seems to have lifted them higher. These are just a few random listings that have come onto the market since the storms in an area heavily impacted by Charley.

Co nway - 2 bedrooms, 1 bath and only 768 square feet built in 1958. This home is on a saltwater canal about 1 mile from open water. In August just before the storms it sold for $100,000 and put back on the market October 14, after Charley for

Li brary - 3 bedrooms, 2 baths built in 2004 on a saltwater canal in Port Charlotte with Gulf access. Put on the market in February 2004 for $415,000, increased in June to $435,000 and just after Charley in September the same seller raised it up again to $455,000.

Options to the 50-percent Rule

S taff R eport Last month we explained the 50-percent rule, Charlotte County’s adaptation of the Florida Building code statute. The thinking behind the rule is that in order to make the population more safe in the event of a flood, and in order for the county to to save $5 million per year on the national flood insurance plan, we must elevate the homes built in the 60s which were constructed at elevations close to sea level.

Current thinking prevails that in areas close to the Harbor designated as AE Zones on the flood plan we must live in houses with finished floors in the living area that are at least 11 feet above sea level, but unfortunately many homes in Port Charlotte don’t measure up. Many of the General Development and Mackle homes in the area were built with floors at 7 feet.

Enter Jim Evetts, Charlotte County’s chief building inspector.

Evetts points to a large map on his office wall. With a category IV storm we would expect a storm surge of 11 to 20 feet. We could have had water all the way up to I 75- Evetts said. We were just lucky Charley passed directly overhead. If 160 mph wind is lucky.

“Right from the beginning we started thinking about how the rule would effect so many people.” Evetts said. Evetts and the county have been working with FEMA to develop an alternative to the 50-percent rule’s evaluation process. The old

Sunri s e - 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, older home built in

harbor access. It was purchased in March of ‘04 for

Factual Information compiled from the Charlotte County Association of Realtors.

Real estate value in waterfront property is enhanced by various factors. Sailboat water, areaʼs where waterway depth can accommodate a sailboatʼs keel and where there are no bridges to the open water, are considered prime.

Dunn - 2 bedrooms, 1 bath built in 1957 with only 800 sq ft of space. Built almost 50 years ago on a saltwater canal with 140’ of sea wall last sold 5 years ago for just $52,500. After Charley it was put on the market “as is” for $349,900.

Page 21

Cedarwo o d - 3 bedrooms, 2 baths built in 1985 on a saltwater canal with harbor access. This home was purchased just 2 weeks prior to Charley for $185,000 and was put back on the market September 7th, after Charley for $279,900.

Photo not available: Beeney - 3 bedrooms 2 baths and 1287 sq feet. This home sits on one of the best canals in Pt Charlotte, with direct and immediate access to the harbor. It was also one of the hardest hit by Charley. It was purchased in June of 2004 for $359,500 and now PROPERTY IS OFFERED FOR SALE IN ‘AS IS’ CONDITION, SUBJECT TO EXISTING HURRICANE DAMAGE, new price after Charley $599,000.

50-percent rule is still in effect, Evetts said. You can still do it the old way (submit costs for repairs based on the county assessor’s valuation for your structure) but now homeowners wanting building permits have two other options to demonstrate the level of hurricane damage a house has sustained. The damage level is important because once it reaches the 50-percent mark the house must be brought entirely up to the current building code, and that includes raising the floor to an 11 foot elevation. To change elevation the house must be torn down and rebuilt.

Now, if you don’t want to do it the old way you can get a letter from an engineer, architect or builder and submit it to the county. The letter must reference percentages of damage (instead of costs to repair) based on a new checklist provided by the county. The checklist breaks areas of the house down into categories. The county will then use the checklist to evaluate the damage according to a computer program known as the Residential Substantial Damage Evaluation (RSDE).

The third option available to owners of damaged homes is to use Marshall Swift (an industry estimating program) or a paid outside appraiser to evaluate the cost necessary for repair.

We will not accept an estimate from a private adjuster, Evetts said.

According to Evetts this approach gives more control to the citizens. We didn’t look at it from the insurer’s side. Case law in Florida has already said the insurance companies can’t appeal our decision and an appeal court decision has said the decision of the building department is final. I truly think

FEMA will make this a permanent process, Evetts said.

Evetts predicted this is the way the insurance companies will try to operate in the future. The insurance companies have already said if a house is damaged ‘X’ percent, say 60-percent, the homeowner will only collect 60 percent of the policy value unless they have replacement value on the structure.

“Very few people have that kind of coverage, he said. “Law and ordinance won’t figure into it,” he predicted.

Right at the moment they have to follow all the rules, Evetts said. We have not found a way to take the cost of additions away from the cost of repairs, Evetts said, indicating that the total of a repair with a remodel tacked on could exceed 50 percent So what’s up for the future? “I don’t see the difference between Miami and Charlotte Harbor, I don’t see us being any less exposed. It would make sense to build to the higher wind loads mandated by the south florida building code on the east coast. That’s only 10 mph more (130mph vs 140) it’s really worth it, it’s just a small cost, but I don’t think they will do it, Evetts said.

In the final analysis, FEMA will apparently use the RSDE, generalizing the percent of damage and cost won’t figure into it.

Compounding things even more, Evetts said he didn’t think mold and mildew were calculated as damage in the RSDE program. That could be a big factor for homes that have been wet in a storm and waiting for a final insurance settlement before repairs are begun.

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Fall Sailing Beginning to Get Back on Course Page 22

By Bi l l Di xon Water LIFE Senior Sailing Editor What a great time to be out on the water. There is very little traffic. Even on race day, October 10, we only had 8 boats counting Dick Potter’s short sailboat doubling as the committee boat. Results of the first race since August 13 were: Jammin, Haller 1st; Wild Hare, Secord 2nd; Yorkshire Rose, Fuller 3rd.

Y’all need to get some of those boats repaired. Last spring we had 40+ racers and we have a full schedule planned for the fall and winter.

Water LIFE

The 3 premier events this season are: The Gol den Conch at Platinum Point on Jan 8 and 9; The Conqui stador Cup off Gilchrist Park March 5 and 6 and the Leukemi a Cup also off Gilchrist Park on April 9, 10.

New this year because of very low tides on weekends in January PGSC will be holding some mid week races. Yes, we know some people work, but its mid week or no races at all.

Fall racing is underway, with races November 5, and 21. The January weekday races will be scored as a separate series and the spring series racing starts February 13.

November

MAGAZINE

In October the PGSC small boat fleet hosted a picnic at Charlotte Beach. All those who attended had a great time.

There is talk of making this a regular monthly club activity. While there was a certain amount of round the marks sailing going on, there was also some recreational sailing, boat swapping and some partaking of adult beverages.

A surprise appearance was put in by the Paper Clipper, the Club’s entry in last summer’s cardboard boat contest. Attendees remember that there was no wind at the contest, so this was a chance to really sail the Paper Clipper. Note how well skipper Chuck Taylor sails in the wind lane and avoids the calm mirror like water past him.

2004

It seems like a very long time ago, but the winners of the Summer Series were: Non-spinnaker 1: 1st Crime Scene, Peter New; 2nd Journey On, Bob Anderson; 3rd Jammin, Jerry Haller.

Non-spinnaker 2: 1st Happy Seal, Marv Kowalewski; 2nd N-Joy, Jim Josephs; 3rd Frolic, Skip Vielhauer.

True Cruising: 1st Diva Gorda, Rudy Gottschlich; 2nd Lovers Launch, Jim Deeble; 3rd Caprice Mike Savino.

Congratulations to all and a personal wish that all of your boats are OK. The Punta Gorda Sailing Club raced again in late October with 11 entries They have 15 or 16 boats that are seaworthy.

The Oldest Restaurant and Marina on the Peace River Water is evaporating quickly from pools without screened in cages and chlorine levels drop rapidly in the bright sun.

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The Tasty Triggerfish November

Water LIFE

2004

S t aff R eport “Which fish is the best eating?” That’s a fair question and surprisingly more anglers than you might suspect will answer “the trigger fish.” Many people have never caught a trigger fish and would probably expect the best eating fish to be grouper, snapper, snook or some other popular local species.

Triggerfish are odd shaped fish with a diamond shaped body, skin like leather, and a tiny mouth filled with teeth of a sort you’d expect to find in a rodent rather than a fish.

As it turns out, there are several types of triggerfish found in the oceans of the world, and we have two species of them in our local waters: the gray triggerfish and the queen triggerfish.

Gray triggerfish are much more common in local waters than queen triggerfish, perhaps by a ratio of least 100 to 1.

We do occasionally catch queen triggerfish here, but they are rare in this area.

The queen triggerfish seems to be much more common in the Keys and in the Bahamas. Queen triggerfish are more colorful fish with bright golden-brown sides and a pronounced crescent-shaped bright blue mark on the side of the head.

Gray triggerfish are an almost uniform greenish-gray color, being slightly darker above and slightly lighter below the middle.

The main defense a triggerfish presents against a predator is that he makes himself hard to eat and his tough skin makes it hard for another fish to bite him in half.

Both local species of triggerfish have a pronounced ‘spike’ on the front edge of their dorsal fin that they can lock in an upright position, making it difficult for anything to swallow them whole, but for the trigger to be effective, it must be locked in an upright position, otherwise it would just fold down when a predator

tries t o eat

him.

When the trigger fish locks his spike up you can’t push it down no matter how hard you try – you’ll break the spike or cut your hand before it will fold over.

But if you look closely just behind the big spike, you’ll see another smaller spike almost hidden in the dorsal fin. This smaller spike is actually the the ‘trigger’ if you lightly touch it, the big spike will fold right down.

Triggerfish are bottom fish, usually found in the gulf around natural reefs, ledges, wrecks or artificial structure. They very rarely come into the harbor.

There have been a few triggerfish caught in Boca Grande Pass and some caught around docks on the intracoastal waterway, but mostly you’ll find them offshore in as little as 30 feet of water.

Unlike groupers and some other bottom fish, triggerfish don’t usually hide under ledges or in holes. Triggerfish usu-

ally suspend a few feet above the bottom where they often roam in pairs or small groups.

Sometimes they rise so far off the bottom that they can be viewed from the boat as they mill around. Sometimes a triggerfish will follow another hooked fish nearly to the surface before darting back towards the bottom.

Triggerfish are equipped to eat some well-armored prey. Their impressive teeth are sharp and that long snout keeps their eyes out of harm’s way while they nip at crabs or sea urchins. Their tough hide protects everything else.

The biggest secret to catching a triggerfish is to use small hooks. Like a sheepshead, a triggerfish’s sharp teeth are great at nipping the bait off a hook without getting near the point. A small hook (around a 1/0 or smaller) results in many more hook-ups than you’ll get with larger hooks.

Shrimp are a favorite triggerfish bait, though they can be caught on squid and on cut strips of fish. Triggerfish also love crabs, and many a grouper fisherman has

Page 23

lowered a blue crab to the bottom only to find it nipped to pieces by triggerfish.

Fiddler crabs do make good triggerfish bait because they are small enough that the triggerfish usually eats the whole crab in one nip, including the hook.

Florida has a 12- inch size limit on gray triggerfish, which eliminates some of those we catch. Florida currently has no bag limit on triggerfish, but in federal waters of the gulf (more than 9 nautical miles offshore) triggerfish and several other species of reef fish are lumped together into a 20-fish aggregate bag limit.

If your triggerfish is a legal catch, then you might want to take it home and try it for supper. The tough hide makes cleaning them a chore and the large head means the fillets aren’t very big, but triggerfish is a good quality meat. Triggerfish provide a moist fillet with a unique nutty flavor. Just make sure that fillet knife is super sharp, or better yet use an electric fillet knife to get that triggerfish ready for the pan.

The big spike on a triggerfish wonʼt come down unless you push the small ʻtriggerʼ behind it.

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Page 24

On The Fly

Water LIFE

A 4-inch large ʻbaby dolphinʼ imitation and a 2-inch ʻdecieverʼ fly shown to compare size

By Don Cessna Water Life Englewood Are you ready for something different?

One of the first things I learned about fishing in salt water was that these fish are much more difficult to catch than your typical large mouth bass. One of the main things a salt water fisherman should learn is a stealthy presentation and certainly fly fishing is the epitome of stealth. When I was (maybe) seven years old my dad bought a fly rod. This was a lot more fun than using worms for bait and I soon found I could catch a lot more fish in no time. It was incredible and easy and I was hooked on this fly fishing.

I personally have never used fly fishing equipment in salt water. I got lots of help with this article, and once again owe my learning to fellow sportsmen whose generosity is always appreciated. Fly fishing in our area is an up and coming interest. I recently met two people who have been kind enough to help me with my salt water fly fishing. Many times I’ve watch the fishing shows and the host goes to a fly rod for a sporty and fun fish-fight or just to enjoy the fun of using fly tackle.

We all enjoy a good battle and this is where the sport comes in, light tackle and big fish make for a fairly even epic length confrontation. Now that is fun!

One day a guy stopped in to show me some hand tied flies his dad had made. First I didn’t think much about the idea, but when I saw ‘Fred’s Lures’ flies, it changed my mind. They are some beautiful work. A few days later a customer in the store was admiring the selection of flies, we began a conversation and I learned this gentleman was Capt. Al White who recently moved here from the west coast. He too was struck

by Fred and Rick’s work. Capt. Al was kind enough to explain some ocean fly fishing techniques and help with this article.

Sport is the name of the game here.

You’re not going to horse a fish in on fly tackle. Skill and patients are somewhat magnified since the tackle is light, physically light, and the leader is a light line for stealthy purposes. You play the fish and wear them out until you can release them.

The main difference between conventional spinning tackle and fly fishing gear is that when casting spinning gear you throw the weight of the lure to cast. However, fly casting is a matter of casting the line instead since the fly itself has little weight.

Fly tackle is rated by what is referred to as ‘weight;’ the tackle is matched by this rating. This is similar to the pound test rating in other types of tackle which again is matched equipment.

MAGAZINE

In Florida a popular general-use fly rod would be an 8 or 10 weight and eight or nine feet long being most common. With an 8 wteight you may be over matched by a large snook or tarpon but a 10 weight is heavier in you hand and would take some strengthening of the arm to throw it for any length of time. The 8 weight would be better for a beginner while building stamina.

This rod is matched with a reel rated 8 weight and matching 8 weight fly line. For beginners a ‘weight forward’ line would be the best choice. Again it is the line which is being cast and the choice of line is very important. Basically you have a straight non-tapered line, then there is a weight forward taper where the line gets thicker just before the tippet or leader. There is also a double tapered line which is tapered thinner at each end. One advantage of the latter is that the line can be switched end for end to increase its useful longevity. The weight forward type is easier to cast and may cast further with a nice straight landing on the water. It would be a good choice especially for beginners. Variations of tapers are always being further refined. Tippet leaders can be purchased and are generally tapered beginning thick where tied to the fly line and tapering thin toward the fly. A tippet can also be made by using three sizes of fluorocarbon line. The formula Capt. Al related was a 60-20-20 ratio. For instance one could use, say, six feet of 40 pound, then tie on two feet of 20 pound and end with two more feet of 12 pound line, thus making a stepped-down-type of taper. This is fine since most of the time the fish will be gnawing on the last two feet which is simple to trim or replace when required.

Fly reels run a huge gambit of cost, and it seems to me there are two obvious purposes of the fly reel. It can be in its simplest form a fancy spool on which to store the fly line and a counter balance for the rod.

At the other end of the spectrum they become fairly technical with changeable spools and even a drag system. They can be beautifully machined works of art with the functioning of the reel just as artfully sweet. The drag system is nice to use and provides a constant tension once you have

November

the fish on the reel rather than using hand friction on the spool as the means of adding drag. As in normal spinning or casting outfits the rod is used to fight the fish and the reel is not used as a winch. Using the rod to fight the fish will save much anguish and the reel then simply takes the slack out of the line.

Would you believe there is such a thing as trolling with a fly? Hard to believe, but Al brought some flies to the store and one for sure is for trolling. Since most of us will be casting flies, learning to cast is important. Casting will take a few hours of practice, but is fairly easy to pick up at least well enough to be able to go fishing and have some success. More advanced techniques can be developed with more experience and ability. Again Capt. Al has volunteered his help from time to time to hone your technique. I would like to get a few folks together and take a trip to the water for a learning session sometime. A perfect cast has the distance you want and the line is mainly straight when it lands on the water the fly touches down with hardly a ripple. A beginner can do this a lot of the time right from the start, distance ‘control’ and ‘accuracy’ comes with practice.

Learning about salt water fly fishing has been really interesting. The success fly fishermen relate is surprising. Most sportsmen enjoy learning more about their sport and fly fishing is certainly a whole different avenue. Thanks to Capt. Al White and Fred and Rick of Fred’s Lures for their help with this article. Any errors are completely mine due to lack of experience with salt water fly fishing. But this will change soon. The prospect of a good fish fight is what gets me out there and salt water fly fishing offers a more even battle. Wow this stuff is great and it is really catching on.

Capt. Al White can be contacted by stopping in or calling the store and we can make arrangements to help with your fly fishing.

Don@Ray ’s Bait & Tack le 480 W. Dearborn St. Englewood, (941) 473-1591 Two block s north of the Indian Mound Boat

Ramp

Barefoot Beach

Coral Creek Doug & Judy Kaff

(941) 474-9534

Judy Kaff (941) 830-0502

2004

NEW DEVELOPMENT UNDER CONSTRUCTION Due to complete Dec 2004 in time for 20042005 rental season TWO UNITS AVAILABLE 10% holds until close.

BLDG 1, unit 303, direct gulf front 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath 1685 sq ft $975,000 BLDG 2 unit 501, 1991 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath 1991 sq. Ft. $775,000 BEAUTIFUL CORAL CREEK Easy access to the intercoastal.

18000 sq ft lot with deeded dock space on Coral Creek in gated and deed restricted community. $220,000

November

Water LIFE

2004

CATFISH FACTS:

There are plenty of them around and they are fat from all the ʻgarbageʼ they have to eat

Special to Water LIFE from Joe Crumpton, Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission's “Catfish Man.”

Catfish Senses Hearing

Catfish hear with inner ears, much like man does. The inner ear contains three semicircular canals for balance and three fluid-filled sacs for hearing. The sacs, lined with cells covered with hair-like projections, contain three bones called otoliths. To understand fish’s hearing and their unique lateral line sense, picture a sound wave. Sound waves moving through the water pass through a fish’s body like it wasn’t even there because fish body density and water density are almost the same. When sound waves reach the otoliths, they vibrate.

Catfish hear better than most other fish. Catfish have Weberian ossicles, bony structures that connect the swim bladder to the inner ear. The bladder amplifies vibrations, improving sensitivity and hearing range, kind of a a built-in stereo system. Catfish can hear high frequency sounds up to 13,000 cycles per second.

Vibrations bend the hair-like projections on the cells, and nerves carry the message to the brain. Literally, the catfish hears through its side.

Catfish can also detect low-frequency underwater vibrations (from 1 to 200 cycles per second) with their lateral line.

Some of the sensory cells in the inner ear and lateral line are oriented in one direction, others in the opposite direction. This helps the catfish pinpoint the source of the sound, much like sonar.

Feel

North American catfish lack scales — except for the exotic armored catfish that have become established in southern climates — making them more vulnerable to skin injuries than scaled species.

However, the skin of the catfish offers advantages like sensitivity for feeling objects like rocks and brush and flexibility for turning.

More than most other North American fishes, catfish are a sensitive lot with their senses of taste, smell, hearing, and feel. It is little wonder anglers are so successful when they use nature’s own essences to tempt them to bite.

Smell and Taste

Catfish have exceptional senses of smell and taste. They can detect molecules of a substance in the water. Because of their similarity, scientists tend to lump both senses together and call it “chemoreception.”

Chemoreception is critical in finding prey, avoiding predators, locating other catfish, coordinating spawning times, and homing in on residence areas or spawning sites.

The sense of smell, detects substances from afar while taste determines the palatability of a substance after it is bitten.

However, catfish can taste items without biting them up to 15 or 20 feet away. They have more than 175,000 taste buds on their body. Probably one reason some have named them ‘the swimming tongue.’

Catfish have two small openings on each side of their snouts. Man calls his a nose. The openings lead to small chambers that may have more than 140 folds. The folds increase the surface area used for smelling. Hair-like projections on the folds act as olfactory receptors.

Some catfish can detect amino acids at concentrations of 1 part per 100 million.

That would be like dissolving one ounce of a substance in 100,000 railroad tank cars.

This keen sense of smell guides cats to bait lying hundreds of yards upstream in a muddy river in the middle of the night.

Cats can apparently decide which direction to swim by comparing how strong the taste receptors on either side of the body are stimulated.

Vision

Catfish have beady little eyes. In spite of that, they all have good vision except for the blind catfish species in Texas. In Florida’s Clennont Chain of Lakes, channel catfish have been known to rise up in the water column and feed on almost transparent invertebrates called phantom midge.

Catfish eyes, like the eyes of other fish, have six sets of muscles to shift eye position. The back of the eye contains a reflective layer of guanine crystals that reflects light at night. This feature aids night vision by reflecting light back over the rods, structures used for vision in dim light.

Although experiments to determine if catfish can see color have not been done, the characteristics of the cones of the eye indicate that they discern color.

MAGAZINE

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Water LIFE

Return of ʻThe Queenʼ S t aff R eport Built in 1960, the Placida Queen is a typical Chesapeake Bay plank-style boat.

By 1984, under the tutelage of a previous owner, the ‘Queen’ underwent repairs to correct some problems with the surface of the hull. According to Jack Hamilton, the present owner, “The boat was veneered with a skin of fiberglass and thin wood at that time, but by 2000 the veneer job showed bubbles in the surface and the problem surfaced again in 2002.”

I called Lydia Boats Inc, a custom boat design and repair facility in Fort Pierce and they came over and did a survey of the boat,” Hamilton said.

The surveyor from Lydia told me “you’ve got a whole lot of good boat here, so we took the boat over to their shop for rebuilding,” Hamilton said.

“They cut the boat open and found inch-and-a-quarter ring shanked nails and some stuff that looked like liquid glue used on the previous repairs. It all had to be stripped off. We took it down to the planking and fixed it right, the whole boat, not just one section,” Hamilton said.

Then they found the railing had been compromised at some point in time and that there was rainwater that had seeped into the hull along where the railing ran into the deck. “She’s a good boat with a

November

MAGAZINE

2004

The Queen under repair at Lydia boatworks

dry comfortable ride and we are fixing everything that needs it,” Hamilton said.

Additionally while the boat is at Lydia, Hamilton is rebuilding the steering and the rudder system. “The people at Lydia estimate the boat will be a couple of knots faster without the drag of two rudders that didn’t face in the same direction,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton estimates all the work on the Placida Queen will cost him between $60,000-$70,000 dollars. “Now that we are fixing her right this boat should be good for another 30 years,” he said.

If everything goes according to plan the Placida Queen should return to her slip at Placida sometime late this month or in early December and go back into service hauling fishermen out into the gulf and bringing them home with their catch.

“This boat is a part of Charlotte County,”

Action Craftʼs new ultra-light 17ʼ poling skiff

Designed to compete with the Hellʼs Bay and Maverick HPX models, the new Action Craft 17-foot vacuum-cored carbon fiber and Kevlar poling skiff was introduced at the Action Craft owners tournament in Islamorada last month. The ʻradical lookingʼ boat sports the now standard qui-dry Action Craft entry with a live well located in the center console for added balance and stability. According to Ron Horton at the Cape Coral Action Craft plant, the prototype weighed in at 605 pounds and the production boats are expected to be 50 pounds lighter. Even in the prototype we marked the waterline on the boat with two adults aboard and rigged with a 90 hp Mercury motor and measured it later. “The boat was floating in 6.25 inches of water,” Horton said, and it would run 44 knots on the GPS. Production models should be available by the first of the year.

Boat Ramp Survey focuses on ʻProjectedʼ Needs

By Susan Grantham Sea Grant One of the great things about living in Florida is the accessibility to water. With more than 1300-miles of coastline, hundreds of lakes and canals, and dozens of rivers, Florida's boaters have seemingly endless opportunities to enjoy fishing, skiing or just cruising. Yet, if you're not one of the fortunate boat owners with a private dock or a slip at a local marina, there can be quite a wait to get your boat into the water. In fact, there is such a growing demand for boat ramps that Dr. Fred Bell, an economist at Florida State University, conducted a Sea Grant sponsored survey of registered boaters throughout the state to determine if current and projected boat ramp needs would provide adequate access for Florida's boaters over the next 15 years.

"The number of registered boats that are less than 26 feet in length has increased 38 percent over the past 11 years and totaled 620,548 in 1993," said Bell. "These boats are likely to be trailered to boat ramps for access to water bodies in and around the state," explained Bell. He noted that fiftythree percent of the present boat ramps in Florida are funded by the public sector with money provided through the WallopBreaux Trust Fund and the Florida Boating Improvement Program.

To conduct the study, Bell grouped 35 coastal counties into 15 coastal regions.

Population and per capita income growth rates were then projected for 5-year intervals through 2010. By using existing information on the growth of boat registrations since 1965, researchers were able

to project the expected increase in boat owners based on projected growth in the general population and increasing affluence."

"What we found was that the growth in boat registrations would be slower in larger counties and faster in smaller counties," Bell stated. "We also found that as boaters get older and their income increases, they become more likely to use a private dock or a marina. These boaters are also more inclined to have boats that are too large to be trailered to boat ramps."

As expected, the survey showed that using a ramp is the preferred method for getting a boat into the water. In fact, results of the survey indicated that more than two-thirds of Florida's boaters rely on boat ramps to gain access to the water.

The survey also documented the fact that the heaviest use of boat ramps occurs on weekends and holidays.

"We also obtained data that show Floridians are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the amount of time they have to wait at boat ramps before it is their turn to launch," Bell said. "For example, survey results indicate that about a third of boaters using ramps among the coastal regions feel counties do not have an adequate number of boat ramps and are dissatisfied with the waiting time during peak periods. Bell's study concluded that 12 of the 15 coastal regions will need additional boat ramps at some point in the next 15 years. Only three regions, two of them coastal, have an adequate number of ramps to serve their boaters until 2010.

November

2004

Capt Steveʼs

Water LIFE

Offshore Report

By Capt Stev e Skev i ng to n Water LIFE Offshore Contributor I trolled for two miles solid with Billy bait and Clark spoons and there was nothing, but as soon as I got on the reef there were tons of threadfins everywhere. We put out a couple of sabiki rigs, but the blue runners were trashing the sabikis so we couldn’t get any live bait. There were kingfish there too and it was the first time I had fished for kings in that close this year, but they were there all right, everywhere and we finally got three keepers dragging the hardware around. We must have seen ten pods (of kings) on the way home, and the water temperature was still 79 degrees.

The grunts are starting to pile up on the flat bottom like it is winter already, and when we went through the pass this morning there was a school of tarpon, good sized fish, in the 100 pound class rolling like it was June. Who would have thought?

Gags and mangs (gag grouper and mangrove snapper) are still stacked up in the 60 foot depths. The gags seem to Capt Steve Skevington of the Kingfisher Fleet with a be everywhere and on the deeper ledges late October catch of cudas, kings, snapper, grunts and one lone AJ at the rear. too. Live bait is the way to go for them, squirrelfish, pinfish, sardines, small blue run- were taking them off our line as fast as we could ners. In general, fishing has been awesome hook-up.

As it cools off the fronts will push the cudas, since the storms and it’s getting better. The lanes and mangs away and bring in more kings other day at Cape Haze we were on tons of and amberjack closer to shore. Keeper kingfish Spanish mackeral and the big blacktips there

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MAGAZINE

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Waterman Broadcasting plots true-course-track of Hurricane Charley from their live dopplar Radar

Water LIFE

November

MAGAZINE

2004

Waterman Dopplar True Track

Track as plotted by the National Weather Service NOAA

Edg ew ate r

Dri ve

ge Brid 41 US

LEFT: The storm as it moved up Charlotte Harbor.

ABOVE: A close up ʻstreet level viewʼ of the storm and the position of the center of the eye as it moved through Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte.

Dopplar radar images of Hurricane Charley were transposed into a track by Waterman Broadcasting (local channels 2 & 7). The stationsʼ track is more to the east than the track issued by NOAA.

The Wa Water ter LIFE Distributorʼs Club

1595 McCall Rd (cr 776-771)

697-1556

Next door to Laishley Marine

Port Charlotte Englewood Venice

Punta Gorda

(Just a few of the places to pick up this publication)

For All Your Fishing and Boating Needs!

1338 Del PradoBlvd. So Cape Coral (239) 573-6455

Visit us at: 4265 Tamiami Trail Port Charlotte, FL 33952 941•625•2700 westmarine.com

November

2004

Hurricane Humor: Technical Assistance

We are here to help you

By Michael Heller Water LIFE Editor

This call will be recorded for quality assurance purposes

Hello, yes, Mr Heller , This is ....Kim ... from Comcast. How can I help you?

We have TV reception, but we can't get on the internet.

OK, can you give me your phone number, area code first?

941-766-8180 time time time I'm sorry, but I don't have your phone number in our computer

But I called last week to schedule service, the repair order was 1234567 Yes, I understand, but I don't have that number either.

Can you look at the bottom of your modem and give me the model number on it?

OK: abcd1234

Thank you, Mr. Heller.

Now I'd like you to unplug all the wires on the modem.

All the wires, the cable too?

Yes all the wires.

Power off Eathernet off Cable off

OK Mr Heller, now I'd like you to press the reset button on the back of the modem and hold it in for 15 seconds With the power off?

Yes, with the power off.

Tell me what does that do,

It resets the modem. Now I'd like you to put the wires back on cable first, then eathernet and finally the power.

OK. Is this an approved procedure, unplugging the modem. uh ...indistinguishable

Say again?

OK Thank you.

There, how's that?

Still nothing.

OK Mr heller I'm going to transfer you now to someone who can help with your problem.

I thought that was what you were doing ...

Hold on, please

Hello Mr Heller/ This is Jim from

the Modem Activation Department

Water LIFE

Hi Jim. MAD is that what they call your department I'm Sorry?

MAD, Modem Activation Department. (lol) nothing

Mr Heller I'd like you to give me the serial number on the bottom of your modem.

OK: 1234567. Do you want the model number too

No, Hummmmm...I see your service has just been switched over and your modem is still assigned to your old address. Is your phone number still 941.766.8180?

Yes.

Can you hold on?

OK Mr Heller Iʼd like you to disconnect the power cable from the back of your modem.

OK, but Iʼve already done that.

I need you to do it again

OK time time Try your computer now, is it on line?

No

Can you please hold?

1 2 3 5 minutes

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MAGAZINE

Hello, Mr. Heller, sorry for the wait. I'm going to have to contact the service department and get them to close your work order so I can open your file ...can you hold?

Sure 1 2 3 5 minutes

Hello, Mr Heller? Thanks for holding. Iʼm going to have you download some software now.

Jim directs me to a special web address, one which I can access and I begin the process.

We make small talk while the download progresses.

Where are you Jim? I'm in Toronto.

How many comcast customers are there in Toronto?

Six million on the whole east coast and we just merged with ATT so if you include California I guess there are 20 million customers overall. Can you hold?

Hello, Mr Heller, this is Tim? Has the program finished downloading?

Tim? What happened to Jim?

Heʼs referred your call to me.

When the program finishes loading I want you to run the program and thatʼs going to do it.

You're sure of that?

Guaranteed. time time time nothing

Mr Heller, If this doesn't work in another minute I'm going to transfer you to the password authentification department, but keep letting the program download, sometimes it takes time. .

Ringing to password authentification: Your call is important to us please hold for the next available representative Repeat 2 minutes Repeat I have now been on the phone for 45 minutes repeat message repeat message repeat (Wife walks in with a double vodka on ice) Here honey you need this.

Your call is important to us please hold for the next available representative .....

Sip... ahhhh....

Your call is important to us please hold for the next avail-

29

able representative your call is important to us ........

Sip, sip, sip ahhhhhhhh!

Honey, I need more ice.

Then, suddenly the computer screen flashes twice and a message comes on: SYSTEM ERROR Initialization Program Failed Please call comcast at 1-288COMCASTNET Wife: Are you still on the phone with Comcast?

Oh, I don't know. I need another drink. Hang up, click.

Follow up. The next day we called Comcast again and scheduled another service call.

Slim, a comcast technician showed up the following day and replaced our modem, and everything worked fine again.

Slim, on leaving the house You know there was nothing wrong with your modem Oh?

Yes, it was the power cord. We have this trouble with this model modem all the time, the connector on the cord is weak and it loses contact.

But thatʼs what they tell you to do on the phone, the first thing, every time: unplug the power cord.

Technician: I Know, itʼs crazy. So Long!

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Water LIFE

November

MAGAZINE

2004

November Fishing Forecast Charlotte Harbor

R o bert at F i s hi n' F ranks R e-o peni ng mi d-mo nth P o rt C harl o tte: 6 2 5 -3 8 8 8 S no o k would be my rated-number-one fish this month. It’s still a little warm, so there are a lot of fish on the beaches, plus all the freshwater has kept them down by the intracoastal and at the Placida trestle. After one or two cold fronts the trestle at El Jobean will get really good for snook as well.

Smaller jigs, live bait and pinfish are all good baits now.

The pinfish are especially good since they represent more fat and are a meal with more sustenance for the fish.

R edfi s h are still plentiful along the east wall if you can

avoid all the obstacles. At Bull and Turtle Bay there are also a lot of real nice redfish and on down the beaches along the rocks by the lighthouse as well. There are quite a few ki ng fi s h out there now along with some really big S pani s h mackerel . They are catching them in the Pass trolling large Bombers and Mann’s Stretch 15 and 25’s. Trolling the perimeter of the reefs would be very good now, or for the guys with a little more patience you can anchor up and use live blue runners for bait. Or you can even drift fish because these fish are constantly on the move. Just be ready to pull the anchor or leave it on a buoy. The don’t call them ‘smokers’ for nothing.

Continued on facing

You never know whatʼs offshore. Kingfisher Fleet mate spreads out a small octopus caught in late October.

November

2004

Fishing Report Continued from facing page

B BIIG G-4 4

Water LIFE

MAGAZINE

N No ov ve em mb be er r ʼs ʼs B Be es st t B Be et ts s

A 30-pound kingfish can peel off 100 yards of line in a couple of seconds.

Other fish to look for are FLOUNDER are all over the SNOOK Are out along the tri pl etai l and cobi a around the KING AND SPANISH Harbor beaches and moving in MACKEREL are on the reefs stone crab pots. They have been just a little farther north, like from month or two.

Gasparilla up to Sarasota.

There have also been some nice fl ounder and whi ti ng along the beaches of

By C apt . A ndrew Medi na Boca Grande and Englewood. Fishing the Ji m at Fi shermen’s Edge Water LIFE Gui de outer edge of the artificial reefs with your Engl ewood: 697-7595 It’s that time of the year – bait right on the bottom you could pick up Fishing is real good, go out and catch when snook move off the some of the really big flounder in the 26 ‘em. S pani sh, ki ngs, cobi a... we are beaches and head up the harbor. inch range, but you have to be up close to hearing all kinds of fishing reports; redThe snook will invade just the reef where they lay. fi sh and snook, there are still some tarabout every canal up river.

There are also plenty of trout around pon around in the pass and even tarpon up They will also be sunning but the season is closed now and they are in the harbor. The sheepshead are starting themselves on the flats. With fragile. If you catch one, try to treat them to show up at the trestle already and there the winter low tides that will nicely. There have been 3 to 5 pound trout, are pompano down on the south side of soon be upon us, the flats can but they don’t do well in catch and release the island at Boca Grande. get pretty skinny and the best environment so don’t target them and be We have heard about a lot of sharks and way to approach these fish is extra gentle with them if you do catch one. bl uefi sh too, it’s really pretty good and with a push pole and a shallow Bl ack drum will start to move out of after such a long dry spell of turbulent drafting boat. the deeper water and head up into the area weather it’s nice. Offshore, I’ve had guys You can find some really canals for the wintertime this month. caching hogfi sh, snapper, grouper ... big line-siders with artificials Generally, they like a blue crab broken in I’m itching to go myself. or live bait. During the winter half or a peeled shrimp. They don’t seem to There are a lot of mul l et around too and months white bait can be hard like the hard shell of a plain shrimp. And the mullet are really fatty. The fall is here. to find for most, but if you speaking of peeled shrimp, another fish to I went freshwater fishing with one of check the markers or in the look for is the sheepshead. You’ll start to the professional bass guys on Lake deeper water of the harbor you see them by the end of the month out by Okeechobee and we caught a lot of nice may be surprised at the amount Placida and by December they will move bass, we caught about 60 fish there. of bait you have during winter up into the harbor, if the weather cooperThe water is high, but he knew some months. ates. With as warm as the weather is now, places on the south end of the lake. We Personally I prefer artifithere are still some bl ack ti ps and boncaught so many two-to-three-pounders, it cials. I just love to see big netheads around the flats. They are fun was all action. Local guys are doing well in snook blow up on a top water too. the ponds around here too. If you know bait or watch a moving boil If you’re not fishing this is also a good where to go and where the areas are fish are that comes out of the mantime to start cleaning your grouper gear, likely to be. Going with a guy who knows groves chasing after a rubber grouper will be coming in during the next

Christmas Lights

Powered by

Crui se A Punta Gorda Tradition For Over 20 years See the Christmas Lights and Decorations From the Water Schedule pending but we will be running this popular cruise again this year Trip length approximately

OF

n November 5: Punta Gorda Sailing Club Fall Race #1

n November 11-14: Fort Myers Boat Show, Harborside and City Docks.

n November 20-21 Top 40 Shootout, Flatsmasters Tournament series, Harpoon Harrys, Punta Gorda, 629-9948

n November 21: Punta Gorda Sailing Club Fall Race #2

BIG REDFISH will be cruising the bars and tailing

SCREAMING REELS

Lemon Bay

CALENDAR

Page

n December 11: Lighted Boat Parade, Scheduled for this date providing there are enough boats.

Please call the Punta Gorda

body. Try throwing some bait around heavy structure such as docks, boats, and trestles.

Some very big snook are like to hang out up the Myakka River.

Just remember don't go after a bear with a sling shot. What I mean by that is, don't go thinking your going to pull that big keeper snook out of the cover with ten pound test. I personally prefer 30-50 pound power pro, and a stiff rod to muscle them out of their home.

One thing to remember is size and bag limits on snook.

You are aloud 1 fish per person per day and the fish has to be in between 26 and 33 inches. If you get caught breaking the law your good day of fishing could take a real bad turn for the worse if the arresting officer gives you 3 hots and a cot.

Get out and put your angling skills to the test.

You might be really surprised when that big linesider on the other end of

EVENTS

Business Alliance if you are interested in participating they need your support! 639-3720

n December 12: Change of Watch installation of new officials for the Punta Gorda Sailing Club, Victoria estates, 5 p.m.

n Jan 8-9: Golden Conch Regatta, Burnt Store, 639-3868

n March 5-6:: Conquistador Cup Regatta, Charlotte Harbor Please send us your event calendar information: Waterlife@comcast.net

Fishing

Excellent!

RIGHT NOW:

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