I have lived in Miami for 34 years and have never been to the Bahamas. We are going to spend a week on Long Island, Bahamas with friends in the end of April. Yay for retirement!
Of course I have been thinking of bonefish. “Ghosts of the flats” are so ubiquitous and celebrated in the Bahamas that they are depicted on Bahamian currency.
I have caught a few bonefish around here, but most on spinning gear rather than fly. I’d rather catch one fish on the fly rod than five on a spinning rod. That’s about my rate for bonefish thus far.
To fly fish for bonefish in the Bahamas, the standard advice includes the same three components: 1) a rod and fly line that can cast into a stiff wind. 2) the ability to cast accurately into a stiff wind. 3) assorted flies that appeal to local bonefish.
A rod for the wind. 9-weight fly rods are basic wind-casting fare, ideally 4-piece for air travel. After a few weeks of looking, I found a suitable used 9wt advertised online, a 4-piece Sage X. Add money and stir. I already had the right line and reel for it. My light skeleton fares best casting rods 7wt and lighter, and definitely doesn’t appreciate the higher forces required by the fastest-action fly rods currently in vogue. Sage X is a previous model with more moderate action than Sage’s latest models. I have used the 8wt Sage X for bonefish, snook, juvenile tarpon, and jacks: it loads a titch slower than newer models and takes a little less force to accelerate. I broke my first one, a lovely two-piece given to me by former student Manny Molina, while successfully horsing a Snook away from an incoming Lemon Shark.
Ability. No substitute for practice. My friend Omar hired a Bahamian fishing guide to pursue bonefish on fly. After Omar missed a few shots, the guide exclaimed “You need more TOW, man!” “What?” “TOW, TOW!” The word “TOW” turned out to be Bahamian guidespeak for “Time On Water”. Having taken up fly fishing only four years ago, I definitely need more TOW, especially on windy days when I am inclined to forgo fly casting in favor of the more forgiving spinning gear. Gray and I will give a talk in Key West next week and plan to stay over in the Lower Keys for a few days with friends Chris & Marcia, who will join us in the Bahamas. It’s supposed to blow a steady 20 mph the whole time we’re there, so Chris and I can practice fly casting into the wind. “TOW, TOW!”
Flies. One can buy excellent bonefish flies for $3-10 a pop, but if I can’t be fishing, I like to tie my own flies. It’s fun in small doses and the resulting flies are high quality and adorable to boot. Here’s what I’ve been tying in the odd moments this month when I haven’t felt like doing something more useful to others…
The collection thus far, arrayed on a board of Dade County Pine given to me by the late Bob Welsh.
Here are a few of them close up:
McKee’s Cacos Critter, tied with white fur from the butt of a blond Australian Shepherd named Jasper and darker fur from the underside of a coyote tail. Jasper and coyote furs have turned out good flies for all kinds of fish. I like the action of natural fur versus the synthetics specified in Dave McKee’s original fly recipe.Crazy Charlie variant tied with coyote fur and orange-tipped silicone legs.Spawning Squimp. Haven’t tried it but it looks tasty.Variant on Eric Estrada’s Biscayne Bay bonefish fly, a shrimpy affair I’ve found effective on bonefish locally. In fact, every fish in the Bay eats this fly. Several times I’ve had a Laughing Gull or Royal Tern pick it from the water and make off with it – very odd to see the fly line peeling off the water into the sky. Fortunately, the birds grab the fly in the middle and don’t get hooked.Little hackle crab, maybe the cutest fly in my collection. This fly is a re-tie of one that enticed an eat from a bonefish in the Content Keys. The bonefish mashed the fly in its crushers, instantly snapping the hook at the bend before I got a hook set. Try again.
In a motel breakfast room in Jacksonville last week, a woman learned I was from Miami and told me: “I don’t like Miami. I visited once and it didn’t seem like a nice place.”
So right she is.
In Miami…
…the Sun gets in your eyes.
* * *
You might encounter a stranger wandering in your yard,
while wild reptiles invade your home,
and grotesquely large bugs walk on you.
* * *
The water is too warm for trout fishing…
… but the sideshow can be too distracting to fish at all.
* * *
It rains on the weekend,
yet you can’t grow a decent apple.
* * *
Flocks of noisy birds disturb the peace,
it’s not safe to drink the water,
and you have to watch your step.
* * *
The Guardian 11-July-2014 / Talking Points Memo 12-July-2024
People in Miami can be so rude.
* * *
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tario.
Convicted felons wander the streets, disguised as clowns.
Bill and Maggie Stone were not trying to be funny when they named their seventh child Jewell. Mostly they called her Judy.
Jewell grew up in Graniteville, a mill town in the pinewoods of the South Carolina Piedmont. There she developed her love of the woods, taking walks in the pine hills with her father when he visited his friend, a long-bearded hermit named Shag Jones.
Jewell’s father Bill Stone ended his career advancement at the town cotton mill by refusing to join the Klan. He instilled in Jewell a deep sense of decency. Bill would stop by the railyard during the Depression and bring people home for dinner. Once, their weekly groceries were stolen from the kitchen, but her dad refused to call the police, saying “Whoever took those groceries needed them more than we did.”
Thanks to the town librarian, Jewell fell in love with books. To avoid the family’s scorn, she read unseen in her hiding place behind the sofa.
No women in her family went to college but Jewell’s determination was likewise inspired by the subversive town librarian. Jewell bewildered her family further by insisting on heading north to Washington DC so she could attend a racially integrated college. Teased for her southern accent upon her arrival at American University, Jewell lost it post haste. She graduated with a B.A. in English Literature.
Jewell married Arthur Kraft, a journalist who covered international trade for MacMillan. Art’s family embraced Jewell, and the Krafts became her new family.
Jewell Stone & Art Kraft, 1954
Arthur died on Christmas Eve 1958, leaving Jewell widowed with a toddler son, Philip. Jewell’s oldest brother Carl reached out to tell her “the family would be willing to take her back”, apparently ready to forgive her triple sins of moving north, getting educated among Blacks, and marrying a Jew. Jewell recounted, “I told him to go fuck himself.”
The Krafts remained our core family, looking after Jewell and me during the rough times following Arthur’s death.
To support the two of us, Jewell got a job assisting DC Circuit judge David Bazelon with his work on legal rights for the mentally ill. Judge Bazelon urged Jewell to attend law school, but she declined. She took me along to Civil Rights marches in Washington DC and I joined her walking door to door collecting funds to support Democrats running for office.
My Grandpa Lou, known in the Kraft family as “Pop”, gave Jewell money to buy a car. A VW Beetle would have been an economical choice, but Jewell knew these cars were built with Nazi slave labor during the war, and she would not disrespect Pop with such a purchase. Instead, she bought a small British Ford, a total lemon that often failed to start, a trait that filled our lives with serendipity.
One snowy morning in 1961, a nice man who lived in our apartment complex helped Jewell get our little car started. I took to asking Jewell “When are we going to see the nice man again?”
In time I learned his name was “Ted Theodore Stoddard”. Sometimes as I peered from the window of our 3rd floor walk-up, eagerly awaiting Jewell’s return from work, she diverted from the direct path to stop by Ted’s flat in the adjacent apartment block for “a drink” – HEY! They fell in love and married on the Ides of March in 1962. The Kraft family embraced Ted as well.
Ted also turned out to be a good photographer.
Jewell stopped working to travel overseas with Ted, me in tow. We had a great time exploring Cyprus, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Eight months after our return from Ethiopia, Andrew was born in 1964.
In 1968, Jewell found a new career teaching third and fourth grades at Green Acres School. Her former student, Professor Manuel Lerdau, describes her as ”… one of those rare grownups who talked with kids as though we were adults, and we responded as if we were. I still remember talking with her, when I was a third grader, about a hagiographic [look it up] biography of Andrew Jackson that I had read. Jewell used it as a chance to point me toward books with different viewpoints. She taught me to think of reading as both an end and a means.”
In 1977, Jewell and three colleagues from Green Acres started the first children’s bookstore in the U.S., Cheshire Cat Children’s Books, on Connecticut Avenue south of Chevy Chase Circle. Book industry experts told the partners that a bookstore could not succeed selling children’s books alone. The store thrived and became a fixture in Washington DC. While Amy Carter shopped at the store, her Secret Service detail bought books for their own children.
Jewell befriended all the children’s authors; her favorites included Maurice Sendak, Tomie de Paola, and Allen Say. Jewell told me that when Jimmy Carter came by the store to sign books he could inscribe his name while talking to a customer and without looking down. She once joined Dr. Seuss for breakfast, who thanked his hosts for not serving green eggs and ham. Her shelves at home were filled with signed first editions.
Jewell’s children and grandchildren always received the best of children’s books, inscribed by the authors, for holiday gifts or because the author had been by the store with a new book and she thought a particular child would like it.
A gift from Maurice Sendak adorns my wall in South Miami, a favorite plate from his early book, “A Kiss for Little Bear”.
As an extra attraction for the store, Jewell raised monarch butterflies from the egg – when the caterpillars were ready to pupate she moved them to a tree branch in the front window. In a week, they would emerge as butterflies and be released. A flock of humans gathered on the sidewalk each morning to watch the butterflies emerge. Her butterfly window was featured prominently in the Washington Post.
Ted has all the good photos of Jewell with the Monarchs. This butterfly is a recently emerged Black Swallowtail that Jewell reared from an egg laid on the parsley in her herb garden.
Jewell served on all the children’s literature award committees including for the Caldecott and Newbery Medals. A master of digital bookstore management, Jewell carried five digital devices wherever she traveled.
Jewell reading to her granddaughter Vannak and V’s friend Shawn. At two, Vannak greatly preferred books to clothes. In the lower left you can see the charging cords for some of Jewell’s assorted devices.
Jewell ran the Cheshire Cat for 22 years before closing up shop and moving her inventory and staff to Politics and Prose (P&P), farther down Connecticut Ave. In her first year in the basement at P&P she sold a million dollars’ worth of children’s books; the owners said “We’ll get you anything you need.” Jewell retired from P&P at the age of 80.
In her spare time, Jewell was a gourmet cook, a consummate gardener, and a voracious reader.
Here I sort just some of Jewell’s books after their move from Turner Lane to a single storey house in Silver Spring..
Jewell loved going for walks in Rock Creek Park, Hughes Hollow, Chincoteague, and her native South Carolina pine woods. In her back yard on Turner Lane, she created a wildflower garden of native plants that she salvaged from the immediate path of the Capitol Beltway through Rock Creek Park.
Sticking around Washington on Christmas Eve was hard for Jewell, so in 1967 she decided we should blow town and escape to Chincoteague Island for the holiday. Within a year, the extended family had joined us. “Chincoteague” evolved into special week of walks, feasts, and revelry, a tradition closing in on six decades.
Chincoteague Christmas feast, Jewell style.Jewell also facilitated silliness, providing everyone with tissue paper crowns and rubber animal noses. That’s her in front of the Christmas tree.Ted and Jewell walking at Chincoteage National Wildlife Refuge.
* * *
On March 10, 2026, Jewell passed away, surrounded by family in a house in the woods, a setting she described as “the best vacation ever”. She was 92, five days shy of her and Ted’s 64th wedding anniversary.
Jewell leaves behind her husband Ted (99), her two sons, me and Andrew, and a passel of well-read grandchildren, great nieces, great nephews, and so on.
Jewell didn’t want a funeral but we figure we can get away with a potluck remembrance lunch for family and close friends. Such is planned for April 12, 2026.
Jewell with her beloved NY Times and stuffed octopus, 10-Mar-2026
In 1993, Associate Professor Suzanne Koptur wanted to have coffee when she visited her new tea-drinking FIU colleague, so she mail-ordered me a 2-cup Gavalia coffee maker.
Everything about the coffee maker was adorable and it even came with a couple of ground Gavalia coffees. Drawn to cute gadgets as I am, did not wait for Suzanne’s next visit to try it out. Mixed with half & half and a bit of sugar, the coffee was pretty good, even for a tea-drinker. Before long, I’d nixed the sugar, but a small cup of coffee remained a nice daily complement to my breakfast of toasted English muffin and fruit.
Thus, in my late 30s, began my one-cup-of-coffee ritual. A second cup in the morning tended to wire me (risk of being obnoxious) and a cup in the afternoon messed with my sleep.
In my mid 50’s I read about pesticides in tea. Why would anyone knowingly do a hot water pesticide extraction then drink the contaminated hot water? I switched exclusively to organically grown teas. Then it occurred to me (duh) that many growers in poorly-regulated tropical countries apply massive amounts of EPA-banned pesticides to everything they grow, including coffee. Forget Gavalia: not organic, not happening. Whole Foods had a very good organic coffee in their 365 product line, then discontinued it. Sprouts Market has no connection to Jeff Besos, prohibits open carry in their stores, and sells 24 different organic bean varieties. My favorite is their organic fair trade Sumatran dark roast.
I didn’t adopt another habit as compulsive as my breakfast cup of coffee until my mid 60s when I rekindled my middle school era passion for fishing.
Sunday morning before sunrise, I’d grab a rod and head over for a quick fishing walk along the north bank of Snapper Creek on the southern edge of South Miami.
There I’d catch an occasional snook or peacock bass, but I’d also see the morning canal birds: Limpkins hunting apple snails, flocks of Chimney Swifts skimming the water for emergent aquatic insects, the occasional Peregrine Falcon or Short-tailed Hawk.
That’s when I discovered the “coffee-before-coffee” paradox.
People’s kitchens and back yards face the canal banks, coffee is diuretic, and there’s no place to pee discretely. I figured, incorrectly, that I could simply postpone my one cup of coffee by an hour and have it with breakfast when I returned. Not so simple. To attain sufficient aim and focus for skip-casting lures under low-hanging tree branches where the snook hang out, I needed a cup of coffee before my cup of coffee.
Roll forward to the present, my late 60s.
Professor Emerita Suzanne Koptur remains a good friend but the sweet two-cup Gavalia drip machine she gave me is long dead. Plastic lives forever, so for the past 20 years, its detachable plastic cone has sufficed for single-cup pour-over production.
As for me, the coffee-before-coffee problem has gotten so much worse. How many times have I caught myself spooning fresh grounds into my coffee cup or stopped myself from pouring half & half into the filter cone? I don’t even try to fish before my one cup.
As I went walking I saw a sign there, And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing. That side was made for you and me.
Contrary to my religious practice, I have been off the water for two long weeks. Bunch of pressing things going on, despite which, my psyche demands TOW (time on water). Rain is predicted for Saturday afternoon but the morning looks good in the western Everglades if I stay south of the fire. The plan unfolds to shirk the day’s assorted social obligations and start the morning fly fishing for juvenile tarpon from my kayak. I’ll play it by ear after that.
I packed the car the night before, bringing a single 7-weight fly rod, a clear-tip intermediate sink-tip line, and an assortment of proven flies that I tied to entice juvenile tarpon. Going “fly or die”.
* * *
FINDING JUVENILE TARPON AFTER A COLD SNAP
A few days back, a friend reported 100 dead juvenile tarpon in my favorite Everglades tarpon fishing area, casualties of the recent cold event. The spot I chose for today, ~60 miles northwest of there, is a brackish canal network dug 20’ deep to excavate fill to create adjacent dry land for buildings. Some people still think building in the Everglades is a good idea. On the plus side, deep water makes a good thermal refuge for manatees and juvenile tarpon during a winter cold snap. I always find tarpon holed up there in the winter and especially when it’s cold.
The general area sees significant fishing pressure, evidenced by snagged fishing lures I pluck from mangrove branches and by the landing net sitting next to a kayak on the shore at a nearby residence. Pressured tarpon are hard to catch, especially on fly, and these particular ones often refuse Mike Connor’s Glades Minnow and Jay Levine’s black micro-bunny, my two best-producing flies for tarpon along the Tamiami Trail.
Water access here is controversial. There’s a public boat launch a mile away, but a clear “NO TRESPASSING” sign is posted on a buoy you’d have to pass to get to the canal network. It’s all public water but I assume someone of authority doesn’t want motor boats shattering the peace in the canal area. Some fishermen told me they were issued a $125 fine plus administrative fees when they were caught on the wrong side of that sign by an officer from the Florida Wildlife Commission.
Florida Statutes Ch 810.011 states that No Trespassing signs must be “…placed conspicuously at all places where entry to the property is normally expected or known to occur.”
When I approach the canal system in a kayak from the tidal creek on other side, the only posted sign says not to feed the alligators. By my read of the statute and the signage, a person can lawfully enter by kayak or canoe from this creek (nix the paddleboard – see below). To honor the implied intent, I paddle solo and fish in silence.
While no sign prohibits entry from the creek, a militia of large alligators guards a shallow area in the creek outflow. It’s such a good spot to snap up a passing fish that only the biggest gators can command a seat at the table. They allowed me to pass hassle-free on prior trips, but I always treat them with respect and get past them quickly lest they think up some excuse to engage.
* * *
THE WEE HOURS
Dream after dream has me looking for a bathroom. At 1:35 am, my conscious brain integrates the repeated hints that I need to get up to pee. Sleep is over. The alarm is set for 3:30 am, but lying awake at 3:05 I give up and start my day. Dress, shave, sunscreen, pet the cat, coffee, granola, Heather Cox Richardson, pack the cooler, and hit the road to cross the Tamiami Trail in the dark.
A dense fog in the Everglades blocks the full moon and lowers my driving speed to 35 mph. Ninety minutes later, I am parked a short walk from the creek mouth. It’s pitch dark. Fifty minutes to sunrise, and twenty to the start of civil twilight.
* * *
GATOR GAUNTLET
Water levels are very low this winter. The gators’ usual ambush spot in the shallow portion of the creek bed is high and dry. Seeing no gator eyes glowing in the beam of my headlamp, I haul my kayak overland in the dark to the rocky exposed creek bed. The eastern sky shows the very first glow of dawn as I launch in the fog.
Dark water explodes into spray around my kayak. The gators hadn’t gone far. Huge bodies, black and cream, churn in front of me and to either side. So much for silence.
Waves subside and I can see the glassy water is dotted with dead cichlids killed by the cold, mostly tilapia. I’m sure the gators have been feasting on them. Just past the gators, foot-long mullet begin leaping into the air and crashing onto their sides. Nobody knows why mullet jump, but I’m pretty confident it’s a courtship display. Fifty yards further, a dorsal fin and tail nick the surface. Tarpon can breathe air and come up to the surface for a quick gulp in a behavior known as “rolling”.
Tarpon are alive and rolling. The morning holds promise.
* * *
FLIES
In very tannic or murky water, tarpon will bite dark-colored flies, but in clear water they prefer white flies. The water today is clear but somewhat tannic, so it’s anybody’s guess what shade of fly will do best. I start with a black baitfish fly that’s been super-effective for tarpon and snook in dark water.
I pull some fly line off the reel and make my first cast in front of three rolling tarpon. Nice to have my right arm working again after four months of physical therapy for a torn muscle in my rotator cuff.
The tarpon ignore this black fly over the next dozen casts. That means they won’t take Jay’s black micro-bunny either. I switch to a white micro-bunny fly. They like that one better, but not enough. They nip and pull its tail, “short-strikes” in fly fishing parlance. I begin counting short strikes.
Since they don’t want black or white, how about olive? I try an olive micro-bunny. Nothing. Black & white bunny? Nope. White baitfish with swishy peacock herl tail? Nope. Black & purple tie of Paul Nocifora’s BMF? It gets a bunch more short strikes, but no eats. I see them charge the fly, rolling onto their silver sides to rip off bits of the BMF’s purple tail, but they don’t want to eat it, even after I snip off the weed guard. How about a black & purple tie of Chico Fernandez’s Marabou Madness, weighted to get down deeper? Nope.
Seven proven tarpon flies that did not catch tarpon today.
I have been on the water for the best two hours of the day. I have pitched a hundred casts at rolling tarpon, swapped through seven flies, two of which received 13 short strikes between them but zero eats. Mangroves lining the canals have been more eager than the tarpon, grabbing my flies on the errant backcasts. My newly rehabilitated rotator cuff is starting to complain.
I suppose it’s possible the tarpon, though plentiful, just won’t bite today.The water feels coolish but not cold, maybe 68°.
Not catching fish is hardly the worst thing on a spring morning in the western Everglades. A bull manatee is swimming back and forth underneath me, probably curious about my kayak. Chortling songs of Purple Martins grace the air. Mullet sploosh nonstop under the watch of Great Blue Herons waiting in ambush on the odd bit of open shoreline. Anhingas and cormorants dry in the trees overhead as they digest their breakfasts. Alligators rise and sink as I pedal-paddle past.
* * *
THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER
Master fly designer Drew Chicone of Ft. Myers publishes an email newsletter with detailed instructions for tying his more successful fly designs.
Drew invented “The Devil’s Daughter”, a big black fly for targeting those overfished snook and juvenile tarpon that have wised to every fly in the box. It’s a complicated tie as saltwater flies go, combining shimmering peacock herl, swishy ostrich herl, and fluffy marabou feathers into a pulsating body, with a head of spun black deer hair and peacock herl that displaces water as the fly moves. The fly is light for its size, lands softly, wets quickly, swishes enticingly, and pushes water to announce its passage. I had tied one and used it only once, but it caught a 40 pound canal tarpon.
Devil’s Daughter, freshly tied and before being gnawed by a lot of tarpon.
This fly is in my collection today so I throw it in front of the rolling tarpon and move it through the water, mostly steady with tiny twitches to make it quiver. The fly stops and I give the line a tug…
Line rips out of my hand and screams off the reel. I take back line and a five pound tarpon goes airborne. They always do and it’s always a splendid show of athleticism.
The pink and lavender iridescence leaves me awestruck.
Over the next two hours I catch and release eight tarpon ranging from 3 to 10 pounds. Two manage to toss the fly and six have to be unhooked in the net.
After being unhooked, this ten pound tarpon chose not to stick around for the photo op.
Expert wisdom has it that the fly design matters much less than how you move the fly in the water. True enough, but this morning’s fishing success has hinged on one black fly designed by Drew Chicone. Both times I’ve fished it, a third of tarpon contacts resulted in hook-ups: two nips then an eat. Heck of a fly, Drew.
* * *
The sky opens up as I pull into our driveway. I could use a nap.
One last nod to the enduring spirit of Woody Guthrie. Roll on sweet tarpon, roll on.
Here’s a stupid story that also explains the name of my little flats skiff.
* * *
Monday morning before sunrise, I launch my skiff from the front boat ramp at the marina at Flamingo in the south end of Everglades National Park.
When launching the boat solo, I secure the loop of a dock line rope to the cleat on the front of the skiff and tie the other end to one of the two vertical PVC posts at the rear of the boat trailer. Then I back the trailer into the water and stop abruptly. The boat floats off the trailer into the water, tethered to the rear of the trailer by the dock line.
Dock lines come in 15’ and 25’ lengths, so when I got my 14.5′ skiff, I bought a pair of 15′ dock lines, one for each end of the skiff. Fifteen foot dock lines are the perfect length if I’m backing the trailer down the boat ramp and someone else is guiding the boat along the dock. Launching solo, however, a 15’ rope is just long enough to tie a clove hitch around one of the 2.5” diameter PVC pipes enclosing the risers on my boat trailer. The clove hitch is not the most secure knot one could tie onto a slick PVC pipe, but it’s the only snug hitch knot I can manage given the limited length of the dock line.
Launching solo this morning, I remove the safety straps, tie on the dock line, back the trailer into the water, and the boat floats backwards off the trailer as planned. I ease the car forward to bring the back of the trailer onto the dry part of the boat ramp, placing the rope within my reach.
As the rope comes taught, its tip pulls free of the clove hitch on the trailer’s riser, the knot unwinds, and the skiff continues its backwards drift untethered.
Expletives fly as I leap from the car. It’s early on a chilly weekday morning and nobody is on the water nearby where they might grab my skiff before it floats across the cove.
The air is 47°F, the water is 59°F, and I am not up for a frigid swim in my fishing clothes. More to the point, I am not up for a half-hour run to Cape Sable in soaking-wet fishing clothes. I scamper down the adjacent dock, hoping I might find a way to intercept the skiff as it floats past.
The boat’s drift takes it close to the end of the dock. Jumping from the dock into the small skiff looks possible.
Now is a good time to tune in to my two inner voices, akin to what Terry Pratchett dubbed “first sight” and “second sight”.
The first voice says:
“I should make this jump OK … but it’s a moving target, I might miss, and the boat has many sharp angles and no soft surfaces.“
“If I miss the jump and break a bone, neither my wife nor my orthopedist will show me any sympathy, and that’s assuming I don’t break something then fall in the cold water and drown.”
“The internet has a thousand videos of people who injure themselves attempting to jump from docks into boats.”
Not everybody tunes in to their second inner voice, but I heard mine state clearly:
“Did you hear the part about broken bones and drowning? Listen to the first voice.”
Heeding the sage advice, I abandon the jumping idea posthaste.
Instead, I climb down from the dock onto a wooden beam just above the waterline, wrap my right arm around the nearest piling, and extend my left leg over the water as far as it will go. My toe catches the errant skiff. Whew! I ease the skiff close to the dock step onto the deck, and motor to the closest tie-up spot. My car is waiting for me on the boat ramp, the driver’s door still wide open.
Half an hour later, I’m 10 miles away. The water is too cold to catch fish on flies or lures, but the fish will bite shrimp soaked on the bottom. I bought three dozen live shrimp on my way to the marina this morning. Here are some of my catches:
Black DrumSheepsheadSouthern Stingray, 2 meters long nose-to-tail, and a 13 cm stinger barb.I did not bring the sting ray into the boat. Those inner voices again.a little Mangrove Snapper
I hear a song of rising buzzes, my first Prairie Warbler of the year. A crocodile that slid from the sunlit bank is now eyeing me jealously, but keeping its distance. Good croc. A pod of dolphins spout spray as they venture past, chasing their own fish and not pestering the ones in my vicinity.
When the fish stop biting, I watch birds and explore my way a couple of miles up a tidal creek where I eat lunch in a wild place with egrets, ibis, and rails for company, but no humans.
Up the creek. Tide is down.
Driving home from the marina, I spot a large Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake crossing the Park Road.
Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake
Monday morning would the SECOND time that my over-extended dock line has freed itself from the trailer during a solo launch.
A quick trip the marine store and I am the proud owner of a 25’ dock line, long enough to tie the securest of Secret Navy Knots and then some. Of course I coulda-shoulda purchased a longer dock line the first time the boat escaped, or gee, maybe even before that.
It took a week, but the Arctic blast freezing tootsies across the US finally made its way to Miami on Saturday night, dropping to 34°F by dawn Sunday.
Most cold fronts stall before reaching South Florida, so our exotic people and critters are not adapted to temperatures below 50°F.
A chill like this brings Painted Buntings into our bird feeders and moves the manatees out of Biscayne Bay and into the urban canals.
Displaced northerners walk around shouting “Yes! Yes!” Teenage girls across Miami break out the boots with the fur. I unearth the LL Bean flannel-lined jeans and my 40 year old fleece jacket, recently refurbished by Patagonia at no charge. Everybody else wearing a too-thin jacket mutters profanity beneath their frosty breath.
LL Bean flannel-lined jeans. Love ’em!
The long, hard freeze of 2010 clobbered our native bonefish, snook, tarpon, and shark populations. A hard cold snap also kills-off many invasive exotic tropical fish and reptiles, but never gets them all.
When the temperature drops below 40°F, local news organizations issue Falling Iguana Alerts. The Falling Iguana Alert is kind of a joke down here, except it’s a real thing. All over our neighborhood, fallen iguanas littered the ground.
This Iguana fell onto the windshield of a neighbor’s car.This one made it all the way to the ground.
The bigger they come, the harder they fall – neither iguana in the photos survived. Had either of these bad boys landed on someone walking their dog, it could have done some damage.
Don’t be fooled, this frigid Cuban Knight Anole is not dead.
A Cuban Knight Anole fell onto the patio near our backyard pond. Good-intentioned folks who don’t know better sometimes bring a cold-stunned Knight Anole indoors to warm it up. Remember the velociraptors that chased people around the lab in Jurassic Park?
I moved Señor Knight Anole to a sunny spot by the front patio and he took care of the rest on his own.This little iguana only partially lost its footing and was found hanging upside down in a bush outside our front door.Cute little guy, huh?
In the afternoon, Gray and I bundled up and biked over to check on the manatees at a nearby marina on US 1.
I counted 31 altogether. One big male kept rolling onto his back and waving his flippers in the air.
Several bulls were quite frisky.
It’s dropping into the 30s again tonight, perfect weather for snuggling around an outdoor fire.
Vetoed. Both Gray and our neighbors agree that it’s too cold tonight for an outdoor anything. Sheesh. Somebody I know will be getting flannel-lined jeans for Christmas.
Dave Barry once noted that he’d seen more spectacular sunsets in his first year in Miami than his entire life in Philadelphia. Having an iPhone in my pocket helps to illustrate his point. Sunsets are splendid, though as a fisherperson, I’m partial to sunrises.
Dusk
Wild pony, Assateague Island, VAAssateague Island, VASpring equinox, Southwest Miami-Dade County, FLTarpon rise (lower right), Ochopee, FLWomenfolk on Rabbit Key, Everglades National ParkOchopee, FLEast Everglades, Miami
Dawn
Fly fishing at the start of civil twilight, West Lake, Everglades National ParkTwo planets and a moon, Everglades National Park entrance roadWest Lake, Everglades National ParkAssateague Island, VASouth Pointe Park, Miami BeachCrandon Park, Key BiscayneKey Biscayne, FLLittle Duck Key, FLPalm Key, Everglades National Park
P.S. Last sunset of 2025
Assateague Island, VA.
P.P.S. First mosquito of 2026
Remnants of a mosquito that entered through the heat vent at our rental house in Chincoteague VA, assisted by raccoons who partially dismantled the heating ducts under the house.
Fish are often camouflaged, some by color and patterns that resemble their backgrounds, others by reflecting the light around them and thus matching any and every background. Tarpon do the latter with scales that work like mirrors.
Juvenile tarpon are about my favorite fish to chase on the fly rod. I say “juvenile” because the adults weigh 70 to 200 pounds. I normally avoid disturbing the adults and fly fish instead for smaller juveniles weighing 3 to 20 pounds, reasonably common in the canals and tidal creeks of South Florida.
Tarpon are smart and strong, and they are spirited jumpers. The mantra among tarpon fishers is “Bow to the King”, meaning when the tarpon jumps, you lower the rod to create slack and prevent it breaking off or throwing the fly.
Instead, I lightly tension the fly line during a jump to help the tarpon toss the fly without breaking the line. My goal is to fool the tarpon into eating my fly, have it give me a showy jump or two, but spare it the exhaustion of a complete fight and spare me the guilt of exhausting a beautiful fish.
Yesterday, while kayak-fishing a saltwater canal, three miles from home as the cormorant flies, I spotted a couple of big juvenile tarpon in the 40-60 pound range. I swapped up to a larger fly “the Devil’s Daughter”, a muted black pattern designed by Drew Chicone for catching tarpon that are wise to the fly fisher’s usual sparkly fare.
Tarpon can breath air, “rolling” on the surface to gulp a bubble before descending into the murky water. Following a roll, I’d cast the fly 6-10 feet in front, let it sink a bit, and retrieve it steadily. Twice I felt “short strikes”, in which an unseen tarpon grabbed only the feathery tail of the fly. A couple of casts later the fly stopped mid-retrieve, like I’d hooked a log. I set the hook and the line began to pull. The fish was in no hurry.
Smaller tarpon jump immediately. Instead this tarpon went deep and swam away slowly. I took up the slack and kept reeling until my 7wt rod bent double and the leader touched the tip guide of the rod. The tarpon turned and made a dash under the kayak. I flattened the propulsion flippers to keep the line free as I worked it around the bow and the tarpon took off. Once in a while, I’m glad for the smooth drag on my fly reel.
We had been pulling back and forth on the fly line (intermediate clear tip) for a couple of minutes and the tarpon had enough. It took to the air, arcing its body in a fast reciprocating shake that tossed the fly. I got my fly back and the tarpon continued on its hunt for hapless baitfish. I was ecstatic – that’s about as good as it gets in my book.
Sometimes the fly won’t shake loose and I must net the fish to release it. While I have it in the net, I usually take a photo to document the spectacular purples, pinks, blues, and greens reflected by the tarpon’s mirrored scales. Here are some photos from my collection.
I’ve been grappling with a multi-way conflict: (1) trying shake the “forever cold” while (2) healing a torn rotator cuff muscle (supraspinatus) in my fly casting arm, and (3) enjoying every nice day I can on the water with a fly rod and binoculars. At least I don’t have to grade papers.
A cold front reached South Florida, knocking down the mosquitoes and moving sharks away from the shallows. The Everglades mangrove flats beckoned me southwards.
Entrance to the flats.
One shallow flat in particular draws me to watch shorebirds and chase game fish.
Birds gather on the falling tide. Snook and Redfish forage near that edge.
To get the best experience, you have to get the tides right. Depending on the moon and tide phases, the area can be 16 square miles of water (birds wait in the trees and fish are everywhere), 15 square miles of exposed mud (birds dispersed everywhere and fish are concentrated in the channels with the sharks), or something in between (birds and fish both concentrated on the edge of the tide). If the wind comes up, water might blow onto or off the flat, superseding the tidal prediction.
Several two mile trails lead to the edge of the flat. When my late colleague George Dalrymple took his zoology class down the Snake Bight Trail, one student had to be carried out after she fainted from the sheer horror of the Black Salt Marsh Mosquitoes. I found that pedaling my bicycle down the trail lets me keep ahead of the swarm. Just don’t stop! But the best access is in a shallow-draft boat, a kayak, canoe, or technical poling skiff.
Coming by boat, you have access to more of the flat and can approach the edge of the tide where birds and fish are concentrated. However, it’s easy to get trapped by the falling tide, particularly when distracted by fish or shorebirds, both of which follow the rapidly moving tidal edge. If Poseidon empties the bathtub while you are far from a channel, there’s no walking out. The deep, sucking mud steals your sandals before eating you whole.
People who get stuck sometimes phone the Park dispatch office. The ranger explains:“Yes, we see you out there, but we can’t get to you. Unless it’s an emergency and you want to pay for a helicopter, you are going to sit there until the tide comes back in.” You might spend up to eight hours waiting for the next high tide to free your boat. Hope you brought extra water and a granola bar, and good luck with the lightning.
I have willingly allowed myself get stranded at the bottom of the outgoing tide while watching shorebirds, chasing fish, or watching shorebirds chase fish. I eat lunch then escape when the tide returns to float my boat. The show can be worth the wait.
Tricolored HeronBlack-necked StiltSpeckled Seatrout that took my fly.
The low tide can bring spectacular birding as it did last week when baitfish and birds filled the runouts along one of the main channels. The flats were covered with winter waterbirds: White Pelicans, Black Skimmers, all the long-legged waders, Marbled Godwits, Short-billed Dowitchers, Wilson’s Plovers, and assorted “peeps”.
White Pelicans fishing cooperatively for mullet.Black Skimmers leaving the flat as the tide rises.White Pelicans, Great White Herons, Great Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Snowy Egrets, all fishing the shallow run-out at dead low tide.
When the high tide pushes birds off the flats, some regroup on the highest shorelines, while others settle into the mangrove trees.
Reddish Egret takes refuge from the high tide on a mangrove island.Yellow-crowned Night heron practices the Angeli Mudra yoga pose.Roseate Spoonbill looks down to assess the water level while waiting for the tide to recede.A Mangrove Clapper Rail skulks through the matted seagrass caught in the mangrove roots.
A couple of days prior, my friend Jay Levine had caught and released 30 Snook on fly in a channel and had zero shark hassles. But when I arrived, the water had rewarmed, the sharks were returning, and the Snook were making themselves scarce. I caught and released a couple of Snook safely but an unseen shark took the third one and I called it quits.
Four days later, my fishing friend Jeremy Nawyn asked me to join him kayak fishing this same flat once again. At first I declined, but then I took a look at the tide chart:
Tide chart for Flamingo on 26 Nov 2025. The black band in the middle is daylight and the gray bar at the top is the moon. The tide on the flat we are fishing is delayed by an hour. It will fall for eight hours, from 7:45 am until 4 pm .
I normally fish this flat by motorized skiff because it’s so exhausting to exit by kayak. If you fish the rising tide (safest) you must paddle back against the fast incoming tidal current to escape, but a long falling tide like this one is a virtual water taxi service. As a lagniappe, the wind would be at our backs coming out. I texted Jeremy that the tide chart had changed my mind. I was in.
Jeremy’s proposal was to head out in the dark before dawn and ride the incoming tide up a narrow unmarked channel on the edge of the flat, then ride the outgoing tide back toward the marina with the wind at our backs. We faced little risk of getting stranded if we stayed in or near the narrow channel, and would not have to fight the tides or winds to escape.
I arrived early to enjoy the starry moonless sky.
Orion.
I rigged my kayak while the resident Barred Owl hooted:“Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?”
Jeremy arrived at 5:30 am with his kayak mostly rigged in the back of his pickup truck. We were on the water by 5:45 am, 70 minutes before sunrise.
Great Egrets and White Ibis leaving their roosts. White birds look black in the pre-dawn light.Jeremy in the lead. One of his teenage kids sometimes joins us, but not if we’re going out this early.
Our fishing strategy was to paddle the narrow channel and cast toward the mangrove roots on shore where the predatory fish typically forage for crabs and small fish when the tide is up.
I hooked a nice Snook near the mangroves then pedaled my kayak hellbent-for-leather onto the shallow flat, grounding the Hobie’s pedal flippers on the mud before stopping to work the fish to my landing net for a quick measurement and release.
Phil with Snook in shallow water. Photo by Jeremy Nawyn
Grounding the kayak on the flat might seem like an odd thing to do on purpose, but it prevents unseen sharks from popping up from below and grabbing the fish on my line. A Snook or Redfish hides handily in a foot of water, but a Lemon Shark or Bull Shark is conspicuous. If a shark comes for my fish in super-skinny water, I can see its approach, open the reel, and let the fish run. My trick worked this morning with a handsome Snook and a chunky Redfish.
Snook, 24″.Redfish, 24.5″
A Lemon Shark circled my kayak looking for my redfish as I hefted it in my landing net from one side of the kayak to the other.
Pesky Lemon Shark circling the kayak.
Enough already. I pedaled the kayak right at the shark to chase it away.
Typical of this flat, the water was opaque with sediment. One could only make out detail in the top 6”, which made it hard to spot fish. At the farthest extent of the tiny channel, a three-foot tarpon swam under my kayak, which I only saw because the water was just a foot deep… and dropping. Time to turn around.
I stopped in at a favorite cove on the way back, wherein I often find Snook and Tarpon. A four foot Lemon Shark had gotten in ahead of me and was working over the cove, chasing all the fish up the mangrove creek – definitely time to head back. As cool as they are to see up close, I don’t want sharks hanging around my boat jonesing for my fish. Lemon Sharks at Flamingo have bitten the hands of several fishermen in the past couple of years and even dragged one careless lad overboard and into the water (YouTube video).
I paused to watch eight Ospreys circle a mullet school, diving in succession, snatching hapless fish, and landing in the trees on shore to enjoy a sashimi breakfast.
This lucky Osprey caught a yummy seatrout.
Full of fresh fish, the Ospreys set about collecting soft material to line their stick nests. Some carried clumps of dead seagrass in their feet.
On our way back to the marina, I spotted a young couple in an inflatable kayak paddling the opposite direction, heading toward the heart of the flat. Unless they knew what they were doing, they stood to get stranded in about 20 minutes and stuck there for the next 5 hours. Seeing neither fishing gear nor binoculars, I took them for tourists. I paddled over and asked whether they came here often. “First time” responded the young man in a British accent.
I explained about the tides and the mud, and pointed them toward a channel marker. If they paddled directly to that marker they could spend all day watching birds, sea turtles, and marine mammals from the main channel without getting stranded.
As I packed my gear in the car, I watched another Osprey pair skimming the West Indian Mahogany trees to collect Spanish moss for their bulky nest on the water control lock that separates the Buttonwood Canal from Florida Bay.
Lock Moss Nesters
I ate my lunch while overlooking Florida Bay from the refurbished visitor center. In addition to the wildlife viewing it’s entertaining to watch international visitors enjoying this National Park in their own ways.
Keeping up with Instagram is priority anywhere you go.More my style.
Hey, that’s the same couple in the kayak I saw earlier, now returning from the flats. They pulled their boat ashore and stopped by to say “hi”.
Caroline from Strasbourg and Jason from London.
They had decided to head back in after a large American Crocodile surfaced in the channel next to their inflatable kayak.
My photo, not theirs, but you can see why they might have felt unsafe in an inflatable kayak.
Until recently, I’d have told them not to worry about the normally docile American Crocodile, but last summer an experienced fly fisherman told me of a large croc at Flamingo that went airborne in its best attempt to take him off the deck of his skiff.
I took Caroline and Jason over to the marina to admire the assembly of mother and baby manatees.
Too cute.
* * *
Pandora’s Flats
A couple of months back, I promised to write an essay about why you shouldn’t fish at Flamingo. The dense mosquito swarms are sufficient reason for normal people to stay away nine months of the year. Risk of stranding on the flats while exposed to sun and lightning should give pause to any sane person. We recently acquired the man-made problem of habituated sharks and crocodiles popping up at random from the opaque water below – recreational fishing boats have trained them well. If you just wanted to fish, you might find an equally productive area with fewer ancillary hazards.
American Crocodile. Note the skinny snoot, Roman nose, and 4th tooth on the bottom that sticks up.
All of these risks have proven insufficient to keep a certain zoologist away. The combination of birds, fish, and scenery will keep me coming back as long as my health and the rising seas allow.
Eye of the Cormorant 