Route #4: February 17, 2008
E.G. Simmons Park to Apollo Beach

"Old School” – I was going through my tackle the other day and came across some old lures of my fathers. One in particular was a killer redfish bait, a double tailed bass worm on a jig head. We used to use these years ago before he got really too sick to do much fishing, so I thought why not, I’ll give it a try on this trip. Since I could not find the double tail worms, I choose a ten inch Culprit worm hook, in Crawdad color. Pinching the front half off, I rigged it on a 1/8 oz Mission Fishin jig head.

The top worm is the old style, the bottom one is newer.

Simmons Park is a special place for me; I practically grew up here in the park. I was always down here, either by myself or with my father. We used to bring our first boat down here in the winter and use big select shrimp to catch huge speckled trout. Later when I was dating my high school sweet heart (who I later married) we used to come down to the park and walk along the beach. I have a lot of good memories here.

Just beyond my kayak, across the canal where those two white signs are, there used to live a hermit. Evidently, he was already here when they built the park, so he stayed. He used to have wild peacocks and guinea fowl running all over that stand of trees where he had his little shack setup. You never really saw him that much which was good, I was always a little scared of that stand of trees. Some of the other local inhabitants taking advantage of the lower tide.

Armed with my “Old School” lures, I headed off in search of some deeper water. One of the good things about Simmons Park is that its one of the best spots on the South Shore to wade fish. Once across a shallow canal, you can wade all the way to Apollo Beach if you wanted to.

With a slight Easterly breeze, I headed out onto the flats and turned North once again. It wasn’t too long before my “Old School” lure struck. The first catch of the day was a lower slot red, which I picked out of a school of mullet. Shortly after catching the small version of redfish, a much bigger one hit.

I ended up catching one more redfish and while I was working a trough I saw something bust the surface. Thinking it was a trout, I was surprised to see it was a snook.

After that snook, I didn’t see much more activity and as the wind was getting a little stronger, I packed it up and headed towards Apollo Beach. You wouldn’t have recognized these spots if you had been a kid growing up here. Me and some buddies used to camp out on this point from time to time.

I learned how to drive a car on this point. My dad would walk the shoreline and I would drive the car along really, really slow. We caught some really big reds along this shoreline from time to time. Now, it’s a gated community.

We have our own way of gauging the wind direction here on the South Shore, just look towards the Big Bend Power Plant and look at the stacks. Growing up as a kid here, late at night you could hear the PA system at the power plant. Its about 3 miles from my house. Now, with all the development in the area, its way to noisy.

I paddled just about 5 miles today, I had planned on going a little further, but the wind really came up around noon and I had some things to do before the week started. I’ll be off to Chokoloskee next weekend for the Fourth Annual Paddle-In hosted by Capt Charles Wright.

I’ll see what luck I can have down in the Everglades with the “Old School” lures.