This book contains stories and photos collected over a period of four years in the fabulous Florida Keys. Inshore and offshore saltwater fishing experiences and techniques abound. Florida Keys photos (in black and white), fishing columns by C.J. Geotis, recipes, underwater photos, personal stories, fishermen, fisherwomen, big fish, strange fish, Gulfstream adventures, wahoo, dolphin, mahi mahi, blackfin tuna, yellowtail snapper, mangrove snapper, flying fish, sailfish, and many more are all here. This is the perfect coffee-table book for anyone interested in the Florida Keys, offshore fishing, saltwater fishing and boating. Florida Keys Fish Stories is also a thoughtful and treasured gift for almost anybody. The stories are written in the distinctive style of C.J. Geotis and never fail to remind you that life is good in the Florida Keys; life is very good in the Florida Keys. 43 individual, and light-hearted, stories explore the ups and downs of Florida Keys fishing and the lives and relationships of those who love it.
This is the most comprehensive travel/flyfishing guidebook to be published on flyfishing in the Keys & Everglades. Captain Ben Taylor uses his profound knowledge & experience to write a solid guidebook which covers the Upper, Middle & Lower Keys, the Fringe Keys, Key Largo, the Everglades, as well as the Marquesas. Fish included are Tarpon, Bonefish, Permit, Redfish, Snook, Seatrout, Sharks in addition to illustrations for more than 25 game fish with descriptions & tactics. Included are over 120 detailed lake & river maps showing lake depths, river access, campsites, & areas of special interest in addition to hatch charts, stream facts & recommended flies & leaders, gear & tackle. Also includes information on tides, charts, & Florida Keys ethics. In keeping with the guidebook series, this book also includes essential travel information such as accommodations, campgrounds, listings for fly shops, boat rental, guide service, restaurants, car repair & rental, hospitals & much more.
From the bestselling author of Saban, 4th and Goal, and Sowbelly comes the thrilling, untold story of the quest for the world record tarpon on a fly rod—a tale that reveals as much about Man as it does about the fish. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, something unique happened in the quiet little town on the west coast of Florida known as Homosassa. The best fly anglers in the world—Lefty Kreh, Stu Apte, Ted Williams, Tom Evans, Billy Pate and others—all gathered together to chase the same Holy Grail: The world record for the world’s most glamorous and sought-after fly rod species, the tarpon. The anglers would meet each morning for breakfast. They would compete out on the water during the day, eat dinner together at night, socialize and party. Some harder than others. The world record fell nearly every year. But records weren’t the only things that were broken. Hooks, lines, rods, reels, hearts and marriages didn’t survive, either. The egos involved made the atmosphere electric. The difficulty of the quest made it legitimate. The drugs and romantic entaglements that were swept in with the tide would finally make it all veer out of control. It was a confluence of people and place that had never happened before in the world of fishing and will never happen again. It was a collision of the top anglers and the top species of fish which would lead to smashed lives for nearly all involved, man and fish alike. In Lords of the Fly, Burke, an obsessed tarpon fly angler himself, delves into this incredible moment. He examines the growing popularity of the tarpon, an amazing fish has been around for 50 million years, can live to 80 years old and can grow to 300 pounds in weight. It is a massive, leaping, bullet train of a fish. When hooked in shallow water, it produces “immediate unreality,” as the late poet and tarpon obsessive, Richard Brautigan, once described it. Burke also chronicles the heartbreaking destruction that exists as a result—brought on by greed, environmental degradation and the shenanigans of a notorious Miami gangster—and how all of it has shaped our contemporary fishery. Filled with larger-than-life characters and vivid prose, Lords of the Fly is not only a must read for anglers of all stripes, but also for those interested in the desperate yearning of the human condition.
Color illustrations of fish found in Florida with descriptions, size range and habitats, tastiness, game qualities, and the tackles, baits and fishing systems used to catch them.
"Charlotte's Story is a spell-binding account of how a young couple manage to carve out a life for themselves on an isolated Florida Key in the mid-1930s. To survive without electricity, running water, or any other modern conveniences, they fall back on the ways of the pioneer Conch settlers. With her ever-resourceful husband Russ' guidance, city-bred Charlotte learns to cope with sandflies, mosquitoes, and scorpions; masters sculling a boat and extracting a conch from its shell; and discovers the "beach store" is a treasure trove of needed household items. Their island home is visited by an assortment of characters so strange no novelist could imagine them. Rum runners, drug smugglers, and "borrowers" threaten their lives and make off with their possessions. Border patrolmen and Conch spongers befriend them, naive campers and ne'er-do-well yacht ladies provide comic relief, and an old black man tells them his secret recipe for yarb medicine, a forerunner of Viagra. Residents of the Keys and visitors alike will be glued to this book as they follow Charlotte and Russ through one hair-raising adventure after another culminating with their struggles to survive the terrible Labor Day hurricane of 1935." -- John Viele, authior of The Florida Keys: A History of the Pioneers.
A collection of stories of people and events in the Florida Keys extending from the time the Keys were first occupied by humans, through the Second Seminole War, the coming of the Overseas Railway, and finally the opening of the first Overseas Highway in 1927. The tales tell of American Indians, Cubans, Bahamians, New Englanders, and of fishing, turtling, shipwreck salvaging, warring, and of course dealing with heat and mosquitoes. John Viele's three volumes, The Florida Keys, have been Keys bestsellers for years. Now he presents a fascinating new batch of historical vignettes.
Fishing Stories nets an abundant catch of wonderful writing in a wide variety of genres and styles. The moods range from the rollicking humor of Rudyard Kipling’s “On Dry-Cow Fishing as a Fine Art” and the rural gothic of Annie Proulx’s “The Wer-Trout” to the haunting elegy of Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It.” Many of these tales celebrate human bonds forged over a rod, including Guy de Maupassant’s “Two Friends,” Jimmy Carter’s “Fishing with My Daddy,” and an excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden. Some deal in reverence and romance, as in Roland Pertwee’s “The River God,” and some in adventure and the stuff of legend, as in Zane Grey’s “The First Thousand-Pounder” and Ron Rash’s “Their Ancient Glittering Eyes.” There are narratives that confront head-on the heartbreaks and frustrations of the sport, from Thomas McGuane’s meditation on long spells of inaction as the essence of fishing in “The Longest Silence” to Raymond Carver’s story of a boy’s deflated triumph in the gut-wrenching masterpiece “Nobody Said Anything.” And alongside the works of literary giants are the memories of people both great and humble who have found meaning and fulfillment in fishing, from a former American president to a Scottish gamekeeper’s daughter. Whether set against the open ocean or tiny mountain streams, in ancient China, tropical Tahiti, Paris under siege, or the vast Canadian wilderness, these stories cast wide and strike deep into the universal joys, absurdities, insights, and tragedies of life. This beautiful hardcover edition features seven original woodcut illustrations by Paul Gentry, and includes a silk ribbon marker, European-style half-round spine, and full-cloth case with two-color foil stamping.
This book is a comprehensive identification guide to the 222 species of fishes in Florida’s fresh waters. Each species is presented with color photographs, key characteristics for identification, comparisons to similar species, habitat descriptions, and dot distribution maps. Florida's unique mix of species includes some of the world's favorite sport fishes, the Tarpon and Largemouth Bass. This guide also features three species native only to Florida—the Seminole Killifish, Flagfish, and Okaloosa Darter—and the smallest freshwater fish in North America, the Least Killifish. Ranging from the panhandle to the Everglades, their habitats include springs, creeks, rivers, lakes, ponds, swamps, marshes, and man-made canals. As Florida's human population grows, the state's freshwater environments are being changed in ways that threaten its native fishes. This book provides important information on the diversity, distribution, and environmental needs of both native and nonindigenous species, helping us monitor and take care of Florida's water and its aquatic inhabitants.
