Flaming Fantasy
5/25/2004 4:38:21 PM by Doug Kelly
Less than an hour's drive from Miami or a boat run from the Keys, a truly special retreat bekons all who love the outdoors
Call me a braggart if you want, but there's no denying that I've fished all
over this planet. From Africa to Alaska and New Zealand to Zanzibar, my
lures and baits have splashed into all descriptions of salt- and
freshwater angling Mecca's. But if forced to choose only one place in
the world to fish for the rest of my life, the answer would be
instantaneous: Flamingo.
Nestled at the bottom of Florida's mainland, this exotic paradise has
been blessed with birdlife, reptiles and fish species that would make
Audubon drool like a water fountain. Apart of Everglades National Park,
the quixotic allure of Flamingo has seduced the hearts of hundreds -
make that thousands - of anglers, bird watchers, canoers, kayakers,
historians and naturalists over the past century and a half.
Even the boat run to Flamingo from Key Largo or Islamorada across
Florida Bay - a journey lasting the better part of an hour - is
emotional splendor, at once seducing your senses of smell, sight and
hearing. Slivering through cuts, bays, banks and creeks with colorful
names such as Whipray Basin, Crooked Channel, Dump Keys, Crocodile
Dragover and the like, your skiff eventually comes within sight of the
Flamingo tower. On deadcalm days, the sky melds with the horizon,
creating an almost ghostly feeling that you've crossed into a sort of
Bermuda Triangle.
The trance is broken periodically with swirls of skittish baitfish,
screeches from disapproving royal terns perched upon channel markers,
wakes created by feeding game fish, ospreys in flight while holding
hapless mullet in their talons, wading egrets appearing as white
apparitions in the distance, and the inescapably exhilarating feeling
that - other than your motorized flying carpet - for this priceless
moment you've escaped the boundaries of civilization. It is here in
this personal Twilight Zone that I've experienced some of my greatest
fishing days, when seemingly every cast produced a redfish, snook,
trout, ladyfish, jack or other willing combatant. And, it is also here
where I've racked up nothing but goose eggs on more trips than I'd like
to admit, ending each day with little more to show for it than a few
mindless catfish and a sore casting shoulder.
But that seldom happens if you're fishing in the same boat as Al
Pflueger of Miami. Considered one of the finest anglers who ever lived,
Pflueger knows Flamingo better than the back of his hand - which is why
a few weeks ago Kelly Braden and I jumped at the chance to fish with
him. "We're gonna do the best we can," he said pointedly as his flats
skiff glided into view of Flamingo. The wind had been howling for days
at 20 to 30 knots, churning the shallow water into a murky, cream color
- really yucky conditions for fishing. While most others wouldn't have
even left the dock, Pflueger remained undaunted. Like a surgeon
wielding a scalpel, Pflueger maneuvered through finger channels and
found shallow run-outs invisible to mere mortals such as us.
"Trout are one of the most popular fish to catch because they respond
well to noise," he said, rigging each of our spincasting rods with
_-ounce lead-head jigs and plastic Cotee tails. Pflueger explained the
drill: Cast up-current and work the jig so it hops off the bottom. This
gives the lure an appearance of life and also emits a thud sound as it
lands in the sediment, causing nearby trout to rush over and
investigate. When the fish spies what it thinks is a morning morsel, it
pounces on the jig and the fun begins. On a day like this with poor
water visibility, Pflueger selects plastic tails in yellow and root
beer colors so they stand out better. Adding a dime-size piece of diced
shrimp ratchets up trout interest even more due to the scent. Right
from the start, our bent rods resembled tuning forks as we caught one
trout after the other. Mixed in were jousts with jack crevalles,
ladyfish and the occasional catfish. While all other anglers nearby sat
listlessly and wondered if we'd discovered the world's greatest lure,
you couldn't have wiped the silly grins off our faces.
When action waned now and then (fish eventually figure out something's
up), Pflueger promptly found another hot-spot nearby. We lost count of
how many fish we caught and released, but no matter. Even during rare
lull periods between hook-ups, we silently took in the bird show as
flocks of white pelicans flew overhead and beautiful pink spoonbills
stalked flats for crabs. An especially interesting sight was a pod of
porpoises working as a team to corral schools of mullet into a tight
ball before cornering them on an edge of a flat. They then dive-bombed
the mullet, their teeth snapping like a lawnmower blade before each
returned to gulp up the injured baitfish. Wow, and we thought we were
good anglers! If you haven't been to Flamingo, put it on your "must do"
list immediately. As one visit becomes two, then three and four, you'll
be falling in love with a special place that's worth a lifetime of
return visits.
Doug Kelly can be contacted doug7kelly@hotmail