Disney Fishing

Most Mums and Dads seem to make at least one journey to Disney World when their kids are young.  My daughter-in-law, Jo, who is a Disney fanatic,  dragged us kicking and screaming to Florida in the Easter holidays.

I lost sleep over the expense, and over the real possibility that I would hate the whole thing, get excessively grumpy and become an outcast from my own family. Then I decided to make the best of it by looking for fishing spots on the map and by downloading the "Great Florida Birding Trail." I started to plan a series of excursions that would put me in contact, not only with fish, but also with swallow-tailed kites, cranes, pelicans, limpkins and wild turkeys. I also wanted to see turtles, alligators snakes, armadillos, skunks and manatees so I read everything I could lay my hands on and worked out just where to see them all without covering huge distances.

The house we rented was brand new, built along an unfinished road that ran out among the swamps, pine-barrens and palmetto scrub. Google Earth showed that there was water nearby, and so there would be fish! So by the time the trip came around, I was really getting quite excited.

On the first morning, Jo herded all 8 of us into the massive rental truck and I drove us over to Disney's Animal Kingdom. This was a kind gesture aimed at me, as she figured that, of all the attractions on offer, this was the one I'd dislike least. I was also allowed to drive, just to concede me some status as Granddad, but my bird-watching habits caused some concern among the white-knuckled passengers in the back. You see, I can't drive past any water without staring at it, and the roads were lined with small ponds or borrow-pits where soil had been mined to lift the road above the flood-plain. The trees were full of egrets and there were mockingbirds and shrikes on every pylon. Ospreys and vultures circled overhead and there were lines of small birds on the wires that required closer inspection. The outcome was that I wasn't allowed to drive the bus again for the whole trip.

The Disney car-parks are bigger than some British towns and the resorts themselves lie within 40 square miles of pine forest and lakes. There is wildlife everywhere and the animals and birds have become used to people, so that by the time we clocked in, we had already seen the swallow-tailed kite, red bellied woodpeckers and wild turkeys. During the day we saw egrets, ibises, storks and grackles, plus a couple of dozen other species, and on the way out we saw armadillos.

I went out and bought a bird table and a humming-bird feeder from K-Mart and set them up behind the house. Although it was as hot as an English July, we turned out to be too early for hummers and most warblers. In fact, the bird table only attracted one bird; a four foot tall sand-hill crane! He trumpeted his way up and down the backs of the new houses until a neighbour threw a shoe at him. I guess the new houses were built on his turf and he wanted us to leave, so he woke us up every morning with his courtship song that sounded like a cross between a donkey and a trombone. At dusk we heard whip-poor-wills and watched the vultures drop in to roost while we soaked in our private pool.

And so the days passed with frantically fun-filled days in Epcot, The Magic Kingdom, Sea World and Blizzard Beach, staying until they firmly, but ever so politely, threw us out into the dark. We just had to do it all. I even became a Disney convert and almost got talked into a time-share.

After a week, we all slowed down a bit and some slack crept into the time-table. The kids would hang out in the pool and the grown ups would join them or do chores. I snuck out with my fly-rod and a pocket full of big, hairy bass bugs to explore the nearby ponds.

Although the map showed large circular lakes all over the place, I couldn't find them. They probably show up from space, but at ground level there is just too much sawgrass, palmetto and reed to cut your way through. A lot if them have no open water at all, even in the middle.

My swim was being used as a runway for light aircraft.
This almost never happens at home.

Just over the road was a small, quite new borrow pit that was perfect. It was accessible and it had quite a bit of emergent vegetation to provide cover for fish. I cast blindly for an hour, completing a full circuit of the lake without getting a touch. I didn't even see a (normally suicidal) sunfish, but there were turtles and frogs. I tried a small, snaggy pond that was connected to the borrow pit and ran off in a mysterious way to the wild woods and swamps beyond the new houses. 'Still nothing; so I returned to the main pond where I found a family from a neighbouring house gesturing towards the centre of the lake. A medium sized alligator was waking up and starting to think about his evening meal. That's why I didn't see a fish.

As we neared the end of our two-week vacation I realised that I was not going to catch a fish in our neighbourhood and that the family wasn't going to go with me to find a better spot. I had to find myself a big, fishy lake where I could rent a boat, and I needed transport to get me there.

The Bass Pro shop in Orlando is a fisherman's dream in many ways: It has a two, huge, floor-to-ceiling tanks with big bass and other freshwater species in one, and salt-water fish such as tarpon in the other. You can buy everything from a 4x4 pick-up towing a shiny boat with two impossibly large outboards, to a hook, line and sinker. You can also get advice, which is free.

Lake Tohopekaliga (just called Lake Toho locally) is big; so big that I can't find the exact spot I fished on a map. It's also completely circular. You can't see one shore from the other and it's easy to get lost among the channels in the reeds around the edges.  Trackways run to it like sperm to an egg, all winding their way to the shore but not connecting with each other, so if you take the wrong one you have to go back to the highway and start again.

And so it was that I arrived at mid morning with the sun blazing down, thinking I might have missed the best of the sport, but still with 5 hour of fishing ahead of me. I hurriedly parked and almost ran in to the tin-shack lodge at the fishing camp, eager to get started. The bug-screen doors slapped shut behind me and I just stood there getting used to the interior darkness. Let me set the scene:

(Clock ticks in background..........nothing moves.)  No-one seems to be home. Stuffed fish and gators stare down at me with glassy eyes. I can smell bait and southern food. Across a vast expanse of black and white chequered linoleum, behind the small, glass counter, there is a gun on the wall and a random array of plastic bags holding fishing lures; mostly jelly-jigs, rubber worms and spinner baits. It's like a crime-scene from a B movie. I could stay here all day if there was someone to talk to and drink beer with.

There wasn't even a radio playing, but I sensed that the eating area was out the back and eventually dug someone out to sell me a ticket. Very few words were exchanged and I was waved off in the direction of a little dock. I asked for a map. "'Got none." And a life jacket? "In the boat."

I found a little aluminium dinghy with an outboard and a sodden foam pad on the floor (lifejacket?) Then I was off through the channels looking for the open lake.

A peaceful day on the water, watching wildlife?
I think not!

So as not to get lost I went straight down the main channel to the lake and then turned right along the fringe of reeds. However, I just couldn't resist looking down every channel that opened up and I found a chain of secret ponds, none of them with fish in, it seemed. However, there were fish-eating birds such as herons and egrets everywhere and a pair of bald eagles sky-danced above me almost all afternoon. The place smelled of big bass but I couldn't get a tickle on any of my flies, at any depth.

After two hours sitting in a small boat, I was getting pretty stiff and my exposed knees were sunburned. I stopped to cover my legs with a raincoat and take some photos. I could hear an aircraft taxiing nearby so imagined an airfield just beyond the reeds. The noise crescendoed into a roar and I expected the plane to come right over my head. It sounded really low and very close, but I couldn't see it. Then it was upon me but it wasn't airborne; it was a flying boat using my channel to get to the open water and just revving up for take off. He passed pretty close and then rose, dripping into the air. My swim was being used as an airstrip for light aircraft; something they certainly wouldn't allow on my local fishery! All this time, my unattended line was sinking all the way to the bottom of the lake and had become snagged on a log or something way below me. I gave the line a brisk tug and felt it pull back: A fish! Yessir! And a good fish too.

Yessireebob! A bucket-mouth bass,
caught on a fly

I fought him up to the top where he skipped his bassy dance across the lilies and dove again. You don't use a net with largemouth bass; you just stick your thumb in his bucket-mouth and hold onto his bottom lip to keep his jaw open so you can remove your fly and let him go. Anyway, that's the theory, but they can turn away and leave the hook in your hand.

While still savouring the moment, removing my white leech fly from my fish's mouth and taking a photo, I heard two more aircraft coming after me and motored into the reeds to get out of the way. This time it was a boat with an even bigger engine than the sea-plane had. The "Gator Terminator" (nice conservation sentiment there) was making its daily run for Boggy Creek Airboat Rides. The passengers all wore headphones to blot out the din and to hear the erudite commentary coming from their guide. I'm sure they all had a great time and saw more alligators than me, and I bet they learned about the 'gator's role in the ecology of the lake. Its a good eco-tour I'm sure. Really I am.

I have to say, it was a great day's fishing. One fish was enough. As I left and turned back onto the highway I saw a cowboy in full rodeo gear, chaps and all. He wasn't there for the tourists, but just walking home from work. Florida cowboys are called "Crackers" but they are probably as sane as you or I, or at least as sane as their counterparts in Wyoming.