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More Fishing and Boating

• On the Hook: Sweet fishing moments
• Securing boats when hurricanes threaten
• Fishing report: Fay's effects giving way to great fishing

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“I’m constantly amazed at all the raw nature out here on the water,” was passed as a salient comment by Donna, the mother of the gaggle of kids on a charter last week.

It was billed as a fishing trip for Donna and her four children but it started out as even more. Before we even got into the river we had several young dolphins playing in the wake of the boat much to the delight of the youngsters. And finally in the river, there were dolphin pods everywhere that had boating traffic twisting and turning to view them and take the required pictures of what, unfortunately, would be dorsal fins.

Overhead the osprey where very active; zooming from their nests and returning with live fish clutched in their talons that would be the day’s rations for their new brood of chicks.

With the exception of the teenage boy, Brad, the kids were so engrossed with all this nature they seemed to have forgotten the fishing part. But Brad wouldn’t let go and his insistence of “goin’ fishing” finally got everyone’s attention — and off we went.

Now it just so happens that our trip was just a few days after the well reported tragedy of the woman being killed in the Florida Keys by the action of a large spotted eagle ray. The spotted eagle ray, that can grow to 500 lbs., by its nature, leaps out of the water to a height of five or six feet and then crashes back into the water with an explosive crash.

The unfortunate event in the Keys involved one of those eagle ray leaps that ended up in a small boat, smashing the woman down striking her head on a fiberglass edge.

That event hadn’t even been mentioned that morning — that is, until a spotted eagle ray, jumped out of the water off to the side of the boat and did its watery crash with a roar. It stopped the gang in their tracks since they all had heard about the incident in the Keys.

Lots of questions — this ray is common in the inshore waters and is commonly seen leaping and crashing back into the water. I have only seen one instance of their leaping back into a passing boat. Several years back a 100 lb. ray leaped into the front of a rental boat and smashed everything; luckily the people were sitting behind the center console.

Fascinating stuff, but we put it all behind us and set up for fishing out of the blustery easterly wind along the Intercoastal Waterway on a spot where there had been some nice trout and whiting available.

The boat traffic that morning was quite active and we purposely set up at least 50 yards outside the main channel; anything to minimize the gargantuan boat wakes initiated by boaters more centered on their activity than the safety of folks anchored along their route.

Anyhow, we got our fishing started with nice clean water on an incoming tide. The trout and whiting are easy fishing and the kids were into it immediately. Simple shrimp rigs worked along the bottom were drawing a goodly number of strikes and landings of fat whiting and good size silver trout — everyone of which was photographed by Mom and then released unscathed save the Ohs! and Ahs! of the kids.

Mid morning the boat traffic became unbelievable — there were rental boats rocking along in each other’s wakes; jet skis with unconscionable operators zooming everywhere to jump wakes and big cruisers squatted down in the water waving a watery hello just before their wake attempted to turn us over.

But they weren’t the worst.

You could hear them before you could see them — go fast boats going near full throttle along the Intercoastal spewing a rooster tail wake and oblivious or, better yet, displaying a egotistical arrogance to anyone in their path. The waterway has a posted speed limit of 30 knots — these boats were at 50 knots and beyond. Not a modicum of law enforcement in sight.

We endured the boorish boating behavior, even the kids where shaking their heads and asking “Where is the police?”

But the fish didn’t care — our good action continued.

All of a sudden, one of the kids got a major strike, and the line peeled from the reel with a scream. I thought, probably a small shark or even a crevelle jack and both would give the little girl a terrific fight.

With some help from her Mom, the little gal was gaining on her catch amid the rock-and-roll of the boat wakes. She was determined to bring this “big one” in and show up her siblings, especially big brother.

It took awhile but we finally got the catch alongside and it surfaced.

In all the years fishing these waters, I had never had a catch like this. It was an immature spotted eagle ray, probably just two feet across that had the hook caught in its wing.

It was unmistakable; as we admired this special creature there were at least five large slices in the little ray’s wings spewing blood. It was obvious he had been hit by the 6000 rpm props of a go-fast boat just minutes before and in its disorientation ran into our fishing rig.

Even as the kids shuttered viewing this terrible scene, the little ray showed evidence of its finality and slipped back into the water with no motion.

Nobody had much of an appetite to do any more fishing so we finished up our morning enjoying the antics of dolphin wallowing in the waters off the Isle of Capri.

The kids were impacted by the sorrowful and unnecessary event and didn’t say much on the way back to the dock with but one question by the little girl who caught the ray.

“Captain, would a manatee be able to get out of the way of a boat going that fast or would it end up all cut up like the little ray?”

Who would like to answer her?

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Species in the spotlight

Name: Jack Crevalle

In season: Year around

Florida Regulations: None

Habitat: A tenacious aggressive fighter that is common to all our waters both inshore and the open sea. Can tolerate wide range of temperature and salinities. Operates in schools and attacks bait pods on the surface. Sometimes mistaken for the pompano. But jacks have a black freckle on their gill covers; pompano don’t. Fun fish to catch but not good table fare.

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Capt. Bill Walsh owns an established Marco Island charter fishing business and holds a current U.S. Coast Guard license. Send comments or questions to dawnpatrolcharters@compuserve.com