April 5th 2010

Yesterday I drove down to Matlacha, Fl. Even though this place is a hidden gem when it comes to flats fishing I was not there to fish that day. I was there to hang with a couple friends, Joe Harley and Frank at a sandbar party. Joe’s band was playing at Frank’s birthday. I towed the Canyon Bay 22 down and idled out to join the party. The party was pretty awesome as all the boats gathered around to listen to the live music the Bomberlaros were cranking out.

I had a couple beers with my buddy Rich Osgood before heading back in before the sun set. Rich was cool enough to save some of Easter dinner prime rib, which was excellent. I’m not just saying it because it was free either. I fixed the trailer wiring while Rich’s house and crashed there for the evening.

6am I am up to make the drive to the Ft. Myers to meet up with my friend Hank. We are making a road trip down to they lower keys to some fishing with Jay withers, Mike Manis and David Hutchinson. Two tanks of gas later, and a stop at Don’s Bait and Tackle for some bait, we were at our destinations. Jay had already been out fishing and caught some sharks and spotted a few permit.

After checking into the Koa, the place we are staying we were off to find the fishies. I gotta say the place is pretty cool. The marina is right here with all the tackle and boat ramp. If it wasn’t blowing 20mph I would have taken the boat offshore to find some mahi, kingfish, sailfish and tunas that are around this time of year. But it’s blowing so we opted to fish the bay side.

I had crabs in the well so I was eager to look for some permit. I followed Jay out the channel and the first thing I noticed was the boat had no gas. I let someone borrowed the boat last week with 30 gallons in it and it comes back to me with one bar? !#$!$!@$!$@#%!@!#. Very frustrating. We ran and started to fish but when I put my trolling motor down, yep you guess it, trolling motor is dead, he killed battery as well. Now I’m really frustrated.

I decided this was pointless and decided to run back to the get some gas to be safe. By this time the sun angle didn’t allow for much more sight fishing so we opted to fish for Tarpon the bridges. Besides a few mangrove snappers we had no luck. Frustrated I packed it in to grab dinner with the gang and vent.

We ended up at Boondocks Grill for some dinner after along day of driving and short day of frustrating fishing. It wasn’t all a lost though. I figured how to run the local channels and will be ready with proper gear, a full tank of gass and a full charge trolling motor for tomorrows fishing.

Sorry no photos too frustrated to even pull out the camera for much of the day.

I’m typing this update in one of 5th wheel in the KOA. It’s pretty pimping, AC, hot cold running water, Cable TV, shower, 2 beds, kitchen, microwave, stove, wi-fi, dinning table. When I first heard KOA I thought we would be camping.. this is definitely not roughing it.