Ft. Desoto: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
On the first day I arrived to my campsite and set up in time to catch a few hours of the outgoing tide. The plan was to do a little trolling along the boat channel of mullet key bayou then along bunces pass to get to the sister key area. Then I would work the cut from bunces pass to the hole north of sister key, hoping the outgoing tide would flush bait thru and I'd find some trout. Here's the good, bad and ugly of how it played out.
The good: I did manage to get a half dozen trout and a couple lady fish for added excitement. The nice trout here was at the corner of the boat channel entering bunces pass. I managed a couple more trout in the cut by sister key, man they were work. When returning I caught 3 more trout and 2 lady fish a.k.a. poor man's tarpon, I caught these where a parallel boat channel draining from mullet key bayou into bunces pass.
The bad: very high jet ski and boat traffic. I won't say any more about the people on jet skis, I don't want to offend anyone. Use your imagination.
The ugly: the water on the north side of buncess pass. My memory of that water last time I was here was just crystal clear; however, you can see in the images it was horrible. This was taken while drifting over the flats in 3'of water, just north of the hole north of sister Key. Fishing was all but impossible there, I even had to clean weeds off my FG knot, the not that ties my leader to main line. Much of it was like an algae film. I don't know how I had the patience to stick with it long enough to picked up two trout in that cut.
In hindsight mullet key bayou was much cleaner although there was some grass. I should've just stayed and work where the two channels drain into bunces pass.
The second day was a much nicer day, BUT...
I launched from my campsites area in the mullet key bayou with plans to head over to the point west of sister key where I often see guides hunting for snook.
The winds were calm the water was much clearer with much less grass, very manageable. There was not a boat in sight so I decided to troll my way there like yesterday. Picked up a pretty gag grouper on the way.
It was about 8:30 when I start seeing my first couple boats and I was now just a few hundred yards out from the point I hope to find some smoke on. As I was pulling up to position on the point, a guide pulls up smack behind me. I started making cast and drifting the shoreline. So what does the guide do? Pulls around in front of me and post down, starts chumming and starts working with his clients. No problem, I pull around him and just continue down the shoreline. I saw dozens of snook cruise the shoreline working in with the mullet, just could not get them to bite.
After a bit I moved on to the flats in the area and low behold here comes a jet ski. This guy was a true ass! He race full throttle right beside me, then cut across behind me catching both poles and cuts one of my line. Then he turns around and comes up the other side, at which time, I told him he was being an 🤬. This prompted him to head straight up behind me do a maneuver to throw water over top of me and my kayak. By this time a little rage came over me and I tried to swing around the kayak and grabbed my stakeout pole and was ready to throw it like a javelin if he came back. Fortunately he was full throttle heading away.
I'm going to chalk it up to experience. I got extremely frustrated in the moment, but in hindsight it wasn't that big of a deal this time; unfortunately, that kind of behavior could get someone hurt or lose expensive equipment. Hopefully there won't be a next time, but if there is, instead of getting mad I need to be better and just tell them I'll pray for you to be kinder. 😇
All in all a beautiful day to be on water. But I think it's time for a little bit of R&R. Hope you enjoyed my fishing stories for now, but time to head onto Okeechobee with family. I will see you on the backside of the Florida coastline kayak fishing tour.