Legends Fishing

When I was young it was sometimes a tough choice between riding my bicycle miles out of my way for a frozen box of small bait fish or to try to create a better solution.

The trick I came up with was using a milk bottle. With a strong string tied around the neck of the bottle I’d put some bread inside the bottle and fill it with water. Then I threw the bottle about three or four feet from shore and lo and behold, the small bait fish swam into the bottle to get the bread. All I had to do then was lift up the bottle by the string, quickly, and there I go with some live bait.

That milk bottle traveled  with me for a few summers and always worked and always helped me catch fish. Later I learned to throw a spoon and did even better just alternating the retrieve. At that point the milk bottle was retired.

I began taking my son fishing for bass in the Everglades when he was still in diapers. He loved it. As he got a little older I would hook a fish and hand it to him. When he was ten, we walked around a lake fishing for bass again but he was bored. But by this time he was becoming a very accomplished salt water fisherman. He said to come with him. So, I bought a bait bucket and two dozen live shrimp and away we went.

He rigged up my bass rod with a hook, leader and live shrimp, and said cast out on the end of the canal that ended with a little beach. He just said hold on. Bang! A big Jack hit my shrimp and he didn’t lie down for one second. The fight was incredible. So incredible in fact that it ruined me for life. Bass are fun and I still do it but wow saltwater fish.

My son now travels the Bill Fish Tournament circuit and he is a pro. Ill get a video from him in action. I am good, he is better.

I grew up in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn, New York. The inlets and small islands around the area were a gold mine for a kid who loved to go fishing. Some of these small islands were about a three hundred yard swim. With a fishing pole, and a glass jar for catching live bait, it was a real trick to get out there. This swim was usually with other friends that went there just to cook potatoes, hot dogs while I fished. This area is now a nature preserve ( Brooklyn,ha! Nature)

When I see the same swim now, I would think twice, but then again if it meant good fishing and depending on the swim, Who Knows.

Brooklyn

Jose tells me to cast a large plug onto the white sandy patches off Key West. Within minutes a large Barracuda is on and into the boat and on ice. We drive a little further and Jose ties that now dead Barracuda to the front of the boat as if it were a tea bag dunking in and out of the water. Jose says, “Watch this.” Sharks were coming from all directions and surrounding the boat. He tied a live mullet on to a spinning rod and he began teasing the sharks with the mullet. I put my face on the gunwale to watch big sharks teeth chomping after the bait right up to the boat. WOW.

Hooking a big Black tip was easy but it felt like you were hooked to a car’s bumper and it had no brakes. Jose can laugh and enjoy himself as if HE had the fish on. We chased these fish with the boat until they got tired. At times I felt like I wanted the fish to win and help stop that adrenalin flow. Jose is the best in the business. A star.

Shark

I was walking along a city canal along University Drive and Miramar Parkway in South Florida, casting along with a bass rod and a baitcasting reel. On the way down I picked up lots of smaller fish similar to what I’d caught there before.

I had passed a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood but felt it was too risky to lose my little diving plug. However, on the return walk, while fishing on the way back to the car I decided to cast right next to the sheet of plywood. The plug landed one inch from the left side and I cranked the lure. It dove and stuck. Damn. I knew there were nails on the plywood. I pointed my rod straight at the lure and began pulling to try to pull the the plywood sheet to me and get my lure. Suddenly my lure pulled back.

Now if you know how tight you make your drag when you bass fish, it was to my surprise that the drag began to sing. After a while I finally got it in and my eyes popped. A guy cleaning his bass boat in his driveway screamed and dived for a scale.

That dirty canal produced a 16 pound largemouth. And that is no fish story. This guy who lived nearby was more excited than me and all he said was “Biggest ever.” With that I looked at this trophy and thought about what that fish could produce and I set it loose back into the canal. What a gene pool.

Largemouth Bass

My friend Mark and I were fishing on the Big Lake in Florida and the temperature suddenly dropped radically and it became a fight to keep fishing and stop chattering from the cold.

In my tackle box I had a flask of Drambuie and we just downed that immediately to no avail.  I suddenly put my hand in the water and felt it was very warm. Out came the waders and over the side we went and finally got warm. Fishing was back on and we caught our dinner. Hushpuppies, fresh largemouth, stewed tomatoes, cause when in Rome, or Okeechobe at a fish camp, that’s what we eat.

Everglades Grass

Had a beautiful bass boat and it was pretty fast. If you raced down the canals of the Everglades you could see coots running from one side of the canal to the other, similar to squirrels running in front of your car. Dumb move but they just have to do it.

Now a Coot is the size on a small chicken, black and walks on waterlilly pads. Whether it is the sound of the motor or just the appearance of the boat they just race across the canal when you zoom past.

I was racing along once and a coot about thirty yards away began running on the other side of the canal. Then there was this big old alligator, and the coot was running straight at him. The gator sees this take out meal arriving and just opens his mouth for the coot to just run into it.

At the last minute the coot realizes his fate and hits his brakes. You could hear the screech in the water as he leaned way back, feet stiff out in front, and all the gator got was a face full of water. The coot got away.

When you are alone and things like this happen, it beats TV, makes you laugh and you even get to fish afterwards.

Coot

Fishing trip to Venezuela’s  Rain forest  with my friend Jose.

After a long day of fishing in dugout canoes, we were really hungry. The camp where we were staying, was owned by a father and son team from Italy. There were great hosts and invited us to a dinner in their hut.

The son had married a very beautiful local Indian girl, and she cooked delicious pesto sauce, antipasto salads and a tray of wonderful barbecue meat. I returned to this buffet for more pasta and THAT meat. I commented on the taste of THAT meat and was told it was Capybara. A pretty big RODENT. I gulped and finally decided .. What the hell…..ate some more. Fishing makes you hungry thirsty and after all this was an adventure.

Capybara

A guy from Brooklyn is not supposed to go wading in the Everglades with Water Moccasins. The chance of an Alligator or two, or a Fish and Game cop who though it funny to whistle my attention from atop a levee just to make big circles with his finger at his temple indicating that I was crazy …….. HA , HA .

The section of the Everglades was called the Bombing Range because it was used during WW II as just that. Wading meant carefully feeling with your feet to avoid craters and falling in, and flooding your waders. And that as they say would be that. I later discovered that that other guy wading about three hundred yards away was Flip Pallot. He’s crazy too.

But… you can walk right up to big Everglades Bass and watch them pick up a plastic worm right in front of you. The quiet was incredible, just the rustle of the reeds, and just you. My lifetime of fishing reveals one common thread throughout and that is catching a fish was certainly more important than any danger.

Went down to Key West to visit my friend Jose Wejebe and I stayed the night in a hotel. At dinner Jose suggested that we go fishing in the morning but my problem was having to get on the road by 1:00pm .

I was at the marina at dawn and Jose didn’t show up till 9 and had a few conversations so we didn’t get in the boat till 9:30. Jose asked me what I wanted to catch and my answer was a big tarpon. His flats boat roared out of the marina and he drove with a destination in mind and he stood up at one point steering the boat with his foot and the cut the engine. Jose said look there. And there was a tarpon as big as me. I tossed a spinning rod with a live crab and tarpon hit it so hard my line and the crab shot straight over my head. Jose commented that he would have to find a stupid fish for me.

The next one took that crab as easily as someone picking up a potato chip at a party. The fight was on and I was barefoot on the bow of the skiff hanging on for dear life, sweating
until my shirt was completely wet. Jose poured Gatorade down my throat, sprayed Sunblock on my feet, and about 2 hours later a 125 pound tarpon was caught and released. I was back at the marina in my car at 12:30 and actually left early.

That is how good Jose Wejebe is and anything you see on television with him is nothing compared to the reality of just how great a person he is and as a fisherman… No one better.