Update Time

The beaches of Fort Lauderdale, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea and Boca Raton have been the focus for the past month. It’s so relaxing to just sit in the sun and people watch. Snorkeling has been fantastic. Light winds make for calm seas and settled waters. On a recent outing JoNell spotted a pompano near the water’s edge. We’ve also seen barracuda, snook and tons of bait fish.

My fishing book is at the publisher. I’ll get a first layout look early next week and then it’s time for the first big edit. No release date just yet, but hoping for sometime in November. While I’m waiting I’ve started another book. Is writing an addiction?

Fishing has taken a back seat during the mad writing sessions. That’s about to change next week. I’m headed to the fresh to see if I can scare up a few largemouth bass, peacock bass and whatever else may live in the Glades, sans gators. Gators make me nervous.

One of the best surprises about our move to the east coast of Florida is the abundance and selection of fresh seafood. Don’t get me wrong, Lee and Collier counties have their share, but it’s amazing over here. The options seem unlimited with every kind of snapper imaginable, fresh caught swordfish, Caribbean lobster, pompano, shrimp and many more. We’re eating healthy.

Lastly we started watching Nurse Jackie, a TV series on Netflix. Serious and hilarious all at once and highly recommended. I don’t know what we’d do without all the great movie and show selections during this nutty year. 

Take care, stay well. Over-and-out.

Beachin' and Bookin'

Hello readers.

Oh my, it’s almost the middle of August and JoNell and I are still hiding. Well, almost. We park ourselves in the house Monday through Friday except for masked excursions to the grocery and other stores we deem necessary. No restaurants just yet. 

We were able to enjoy our first Florida lobsters of the season a couple of nights ago. We get them here fresh with the heads on! Amazing. They were coupled with filet mignons and wine for a little surf and turf. Who needs a restaurant? 

The beach has been the hangout each weekend, weather permitting. It’s deserted in the early morning so spacing is not a problem. Heck, we spend more time in the Atlantic than we do on the beach. They say sunshine keeps the virus at bay. Who knows? It does make both of us feel better. Being cooped up inside is not our style.

My book is coming along much faster than expected. The first edit is in the bag and I’m guessing there will be at least two, maybe more. Photos and drawings and layout will follow. 35,000 words… perhaps more. I keep thinking of something that ought to be added. Maybe if I can get this to the publisher I can go back to fishing.

My recent visit with my oncologist went well. All my numbers are good and I have finally gotten the meds I need without paying a small fortune. Whew. That was a grind.

Take care, be careful, stay well.

Rob 

Bonnet House Museum & Gardens

JoNell and I lived here in Fort Lauderdale in the late 90’s. We had a condo in western Broward in an area called Jacaranda. It was good. We were close to the Glades, we had nearby canals where peacock bass hung out, and the Interstate was close by for trips to the Keys. Because of the western location we didn’t visit the beach all that much. We also kept a boat in Islamorada so most of our weekends were spent there.  

After almost 20 years in Lee County we made a decision to head back east after JoNell got a job offer. We decided we wanted to be closer to the beach, much closer. We no longer owned a boat and we didn’t want the continued responsibility of home ownership, so we took some advice from a nephew who calls Fort Lauderdale home and began hunting for a place to live. 

We now live within a couple of miles of the beach where we spend at least one day a week decompressing. JoNell, being the exerciser, walks to the beach. I prefer a bike or the truck. 

In our previous life here we would occasionally drive north on A1A after crossing the 17th Street Causeway bridge. Just before approaching East Sunrise Boulevard,  on the left side of the road, is a noticeable large heavily wooded area. A magnificent homestead called the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens is preserved there. 

The mansion and grounds are open to the public and after 25 years of driving by and wondering what was in those woods, JoNell and I finally satisfied our curiosity. It was worth the wait.

Bonnet House was created by artist Frederic Clay Bartlett in 1920. The land was given to him and and his wife, Helen Birch, by her father, Hugh Taylor Birch. A state park just north of Bonnet House bears Mr. Birch’s name. Helen died of cancer in 1925 and Mr. Bartlett remarried Evelyn Lilly in 1931. She continued to winter at the estate until 1995. 

To say I was amazed at what is hidden behind a wall and thick woods along a bustling A1A would be an understatement. The 35-acre estate is a blessing. There are beautiful gardens, a hardwood barrier island forrest, lagoons, orchids and of course, wildlife. The historic home is also a museum to countless works of art painted by Fredric. He and Helen also collected art from all over the world. After Fredric and Evelyn were married Fredric encouraged Evelyn to take up painting in 1933. To say she was prolific would be an understatement. 

Evelyn also had a passion for orchids, shells and tiki bars. The onsite Shell Museum Complex, built for Evelyn by Fredric, contains Evelyn’s shell collection, an Orchid House and her private Bamboo Bar. You enter through a small rotunda with floor to ceiling display cases of collected shells. To the right is an honest to goodness tiki bar complete with stools and a fully equipped bar. Straight ahead is the orchid room. Evelyn was a very lucky lady.

The Bonnet House Museum & Gardens is open everyday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is $20 for access to the home and gardens. At this time, due to Covid-19, the tours are self-guided. They have added a considerable amount of electronic information via your cell phone so bring headphones. Be sure to check their website for additional information. www.bonnethouse.org

Low Pressure

We are barely past the halfway point of 2020 and now tropical storms and a possible hurricane have been added to the list. What a mess. As most of you know I tend to look at the bright side of all of this. This too will pass.

I still haven’t been fishing! The weather and the book I’m writing have both gotten in the way. Hopefully there will be time for that after the “impossible to pronounce” Isaias has passed. I’m not holding my breath. 2020 seems to have other ideas.

Here’s a fishing tip. Low barometric pressure causes an uptick in the feeding patterns of fish. Actually most animals are affected by this phenomena. The approaching tropical blow will most certainly lower the pressure. If you have the time to wet a line, and it’s safe to do so, perhaps Friday afternoon or early Saturday morning would be a good time to hit the water.

Stay well, wash your hands, stay 6-feet apart and wear that mask if you are anywhere near me.

Still hiding in Fort Lauderdale

Capt. Rob

Hiding

Survived another week in South Florida. Apparently the Covid-19 is running rampant, so extra care has been taken. Trips to the store are more limited and the only outings are exercise walking and beach related. We’ve figured out how to socially distance at the beach in a big way. Go early. Most of the folks here are much younger than us old folks, so they tend to sleep in on Saturday’s and Sundays. We can have most of the beach to ourselves until about noon.

I was hoping to go fishing this week, but that was not to be. Weather was terrible so I stayed put in front of the computer and knocked out a lot of writing for my book. Crossed the 28,000 word threshold yesterday. I’ve got a lot to say about fishing.

Hopefully I’ll be able to wet a line this coming week if the nicer weather returns. I’m anxious to get back to the Glade’s canals and see if I can’t stir up some bass and peacocks, and perhaps get a big ole snakehead. Yes, that’s a fish. Ugly sucker, but they pull like crazy.

Be safe out there and stay well. More to come shortly…

Fishing Books

Photo: Rob Modys

While I was writing for the Fort Myers Beach Island Sand Paper I compiled a list of article ideas. These would pop into my head driving down the road, fishing, beaching and showering. By the way, it’s really tough to write down an idea while in the shower. Perhaps I need one of those dive message wet boards. Anyhow… This blog post is from that list and I must give credit where credit is due.

Capt. Debbie Hanson of SheFishes2 had a segment topic a couple of months ago on Reel Talk Radio about favorite fishing books. It was great and she garnered a lot of responses, not only on the radio show, but also via social media posts. I really enjoyed the anglers’ choices. They ran the whole gamut from technical to comedic.

While I don’t consider myself a book critic, I do have what most folks would call a vast collection of fishing how-to books and literature. Many of them were garnered though my own collecting efforts, and a great deal of the books came from my grandfather Modys’ library.

So without further ado here are some of my favorites.

Crunch & Des, Classic Stories of Saltwater Fishing, by Philip Wylie is a collection of stories pulled from almost 30 years of his writings for the Saturday Evening Post. The tales are about the adventures and antics of Crunch and Des, two Miami fisherman. It’s very funny and an enjoyable read. Even though dated, these stories will ring true for many of today’s saltwater anglers. Thanks to Kevin Dunn for sending this book to me. I’ve throughly enjoyed reading it.

Fisherman’s Coast, An Angler’s Guide to Marine Warm-Water Gamefish and Their Habitats, by Aaron J. Adams. This book hits all my science receptors full force and is the basis for many of my seminars and classes on the science of fishing. There is a wealth of information with details that will take many reads to digest.

Woodsmoke and Watercress, by Dana S. Lamb is from my grandfather’s collection and was published in 1965. It’s a series of short fly fishing stories from northern freshwater streams, well told with a good many anecdotes. I love the older stories, especially the descriptive words used and the way they sound like something told around a campfire.

Secret Spots, Florida’s Best Saltwater Fishing From Sarasota Bay to Marco, by Frank Sargeant. This little jewel went out of print and then reappeared via Kindle ebook. On a recent check I found it back in print via paperback. When I first bought this book I immediately took a gander at the locations to verify if they were really secret or not. They were, as in past tense. Oh crap. While published in 1993 it has a ton of good information about fishing the Southwest Florida waters. Things have changed over the years, but as a guide for new anglers, it’s still a must have.

Marquesa, A time & Place With Fish, by Jeffrey Cardenas. This is still, by a long shot, my favorite outdoor book. The author, a former Key West fishing guide, spent six weeks alone in the summer of 1994 on a 26-foot homemade houseboat in the Marquesas 25 miles to the west of Key West. He had a skiff, a canoe, a few boxes of canned food, fly rods and books. As he also points out in the introduction, there was no TV, telephone, air conditioning, shoes or a schedule. He was there only as an observer of the cycle of life on this remote atoll. I’m thinking that 2020 would be a good year to do this myself.

***All of these books are available via online sellers, but be aware that some are collectables and come with a collectible price.

Endings And Beginnings

 
First and foremost, Happy 4th of July! Long live America!

For the past year I've been writing a column for the Fort Myers Beach Island Sand Paper, a local beach newspaper written for and about the locals and tourist that live and visit there. My column was called Footprints In The Sand. Yes, note the word "was." All good things must come to an end. The Covid-19 virus shut the paper down along with hundreds, if not thousands of other small businesses. In my last column for the Sand Paper I noted that I will once again go back to blogging and working more feverishly on my book(s). As a matter of fact I knocked out almost 1,800 words yesterday and I'm hopping to finish the manuscript by early Fall.

I loved writing for the Sand Paper. It was a way of sharing my knowledge about the area and the many hobbies I've been a part of for most of my life.

I was once complemented by a former fishing charter customer. He said I reminded him of 'renaissance man' Thomas Jefferson. He pointed out that Jefferson's life was a constant motion of one achievement after another that was driven by hobbies. Hmm. Here's the interesting part. I've been a long time fan of Thomas Jefferson since visiting his Virginia home, Monticello, in my youth. I was amazed at all the things he'd invented that are on display there. Needless to say, my customer's compliment was well taken.

Officially I'm no longer writing for publications, although if one comes along that fits my style I'll be sure to consider the options. In the meantime I'll get back to blogging about my hobbies, my travels and my beloved Florida, a state that has approximately 1,350 miles of  coastline, over 4,500 islands and the only coral barrier reef in the continental United States. That's a lot of ground to cover and I'm pretty sure I've only touched the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks again for reading Reflections On The Water.

Hello Again

Hello Readers.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve posted on this blog and a lot of water has  gone under the bridge. I was going to start anew, but changed my mind. There’s a lot of me in the old posts and I don’t want to lose them to the aether. 

We and most of the world are currently under ‘stay at home’ recommendations, and in some cases orders for a pandemic caused by a virus called Covid-19. It’s flu-like and deadly. More about that later.

I’ll start where I left off a little over 4 years ago.

The stem cell transplant went well. There were a few setbacks early in the process, but I won’t bore you with the details and I honestly don’t want to relive it again via writing. I spent about 6 months starting in early March of 2016 in a bubble unable to associate much with outsiders. Your immune system is a wreck after stem cell replacement so it’s imperative that you avoid just about anything that might cause an infection. Well, that’s just about everything.

I made it through the sequester and have been doing well ever since. My numbers are good, the cancer is still there hiding, but too small to measure. I currently take a low dose chemo pill and get regular checkups. Onward and upward.

I found the true meaning of friendship. Some good, some not so good, but all in all positive. I’ve also been enlightened, thanks to my inevitable demise, that there are a lot of things that just aren’t that all fired important anymore. I worry far less about the world, and much more about me, my family and my friends. 

Several years ago JoNell began to get a bit burned out with her job at the Collier County Visitors and Convention Bureau. Seems she was doing all the work with very few pats on the back except from her clients. An offer came in from the Broward County CVB and as they say, the rest is history. We sold the house and moved to Fort Lauderdale this past December. Our friends and some of our family thought we were crazy to head back to the big city, but we are very happy here and love the ability to travel quickly to one of our favorite places, the Florida Keys.

Before the move I was teaching fishing classes at Bass Pro Shops in Fort Myers and I continued to do my radio show. When the news came that JoNell was offered her dream job in Fort Lauderdale I made the decision that driving across Alligator Alley would be a bit much. I quit teaching and retired from my radio show after almost eleven years on the air. Bittersweet, but I’m actually enjoying sleeping in on Saturday mornings and sharing weekends with JoNell.

I’m going to promise to be better about writing on this blog. Not only for readers, but for me. I find writing very therapeutic.