When I made plans to go to Captiva Island in Florida during spring break, I had no idea where the “Crazy” dude was. All I knew that he was in somewhere in Florida for the winter and racking up crazy frequent flier miles traveling to shows in the northeast in the winter.
One day in February he drops me a facebook message asking me when I am coming down. Coming were, I asked? I don’t even know where the hell you are dude.
I would have never guessed that he was staying 30 miles away from our vacation spot. Not in a million years. But then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Three people have told me over the last few months that Pine Island Sound, Estero Bay and Port Charlotte might have the best fishing in Florida while much less crowded then east coast. In fact, that was the reason we decided on Captiva. I’ve never heard about this little piece of heaven till Joe Mallat, the fellow who wrote few books on surf fishing and who runs a surf fishing school out of Hatteras told me about it while we discussed an article for Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine. His article will appear the upcoming issue….
Anyway, I decided to take Crazy Alberto up on his offer of kayaking and fishing for reds and snook. It was difficult to ask the wife to sneak out for the afternoon on your vacation, really hard. You guys know me by now, family is always first. But I had a ton of stuff planed with them so on one very windy Tuesday I meet Crazy One at the local boat ramp.
Now let me profess my complete unfamiliarity with who can do what with a fly rod and what is a long cast or what is an expert level. All I can tell you is that I never seen anyone do what Al did on a boat ramp, a single stroke backwards, load a rod and empty out all the line in one shot. Holy smokes! He was trying to teach me and if we didn’t have the windiest day of the year he probably would have successes in at least teaching me how to cast further than 10 feet but on this day it wasn’t meant to be. I tried to soak up the motions of the fly line and hopefully use it at some future date. Needles to say, the man is a virtuoso with long rod and a long wand….
How about kayak?
After all, although he is known’s as a big fish hunter with a long stick and has a series of rods with his name on it, I never really considered him a kayak guy….and yet again I was wrong…. so wrong.
coming tomorrow, part deux with Crazy one
BTW
This is for those of you who think we are experts here at sj 🙂
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfkCnPH70MY[/youtube]
Al is a special guy Z and that boat ramp I remember well. Glad to hear you met up in his “mecca” and got a chance to take out those kayaks. The fishing in those places you mentioned is out of control.
↓Nice Cast Z… But ya shoulda destroyed the evidence. We would have believed ya!
↓Love that area down there,mums has a place on sanibel but I like captiva a little better!
↓I’m actually a fan of St James Island down there. have caught my biggest snook right off the end of the island. (my mother in laws property ends at the end of the island.) and the fishing there is just as good as sanabel, or captivia. nice cast too. how much weight?
↓No lifevest? Tsk tsk.
↓Everyone a critic
↓Hi Zeno I enjoyed that very much. The video was really funny. I was half expecting someone to come out of that trailor in boxers slippers and a house coat with a shot-Gun.
↓Zeno, What kind of braid was that?
↓Zeno, What kind of braid is that?
↓What braid
↓I thinking thus is new legend rod sounds like rod guru low in the back ground hmmmm sounds sweet
↓The line you’re using in the video, casting in parking lot.
↓