Our Florida as seen through the eyes of a Florida native
The Florida I grew up in is a lot different from the Florida so many know and love today.We in the deep south love to eat, fish, and hunt.Join me as this Florida native relives a time long gone, but never forgotten, and takes a look at the future.Before we begin our journey through time let's start with an old-fashion Florida breakfast of a flavorful, smoked to perfection, ham steak, eggs, cheese-grits, an a very special corn bread baked to perfection by my loving daughter:
Speaking of perfection... Until you have tried grown in your back yard Florida bananas, you have not tried bananas. Talk about a delicacy, the Sunshine's State bananas are tart, bursting with flavor, and produce year after year:
This Florida native was born in Tampa, December 8, 1941:
Since that time I have witnessed a population explosion. I grew up rabbit and quail hunting in my back yard; those days are forever gone.
Fishing:My fishing career began in the late forties. The miles of grass flats around Davis Causeway (name changed to Courtney Campbell Causeway in 1948) were over-run with huge Trout, Red Fish, and Blue Crabs:
1960 witnessed the completion of the Howard Frankland, sometimes spelled Franklin, Bridge. The night time Tarpon fishing, on a calm fast moving tide, defied the imagination. And the Spring King Fish run three miles off Clearwater Beach was every bit a exciting. We could easily jump 25 tarpon a night, and catch 100 Kings a day:
My serious hog hunting career began at the Avon Park Bombing Range Wildlife Management Area with a Redbone Hound named Sally. If there was a hog around, Sally would find it. We harvested many huge boars together:
My wife, Thelma, loved to fish in our back-yard pond, and hog hunt at Madison County's Buck & Boar Hunting Club. She was good, very good, at both:
Our daughter, Dee, brought us Danielle and three great grand children:
Danielle and family live in Latexo, Texas. Latexo boast a population of just over 300. Deer are frequent visitors to her back yard. Her children, Braxton, Briley, and even the youngest, Delilah, are following in Mom's footsteps. Hunting and fishing are second nature to them:Two of the best Hunting Clubs we have ever belonged to were located in Floral City, and Madison County, Florida.We had state-of-the-art camp sights at both, as well as first-class 4X4 hunting vehicles:
The Floral City snipe and duck hunting were outstanding, outstanding at a price... I can still remember wading through saw-grass, waste deep water, cold, windy, and raining 1/2 hour before sun-up all for a duck. The snipe hunting was not that bad, but gosh, were those little devils ever hard to hit:
Buck & Boar was overrun with the wildest of wild hogs. What a challenge.Bear Bridge Ranch and Two Guys & A Hog were not as much of a challenge, but still tremendously exciting hunting. As with B&B the smaller 'meat hogs' were much easier to harvest than the real trophies.
My daughter, Dee, is in a constant state of high-alert. Daughter, I think you are being watched:
In Florida we can hunt & fish 24/7 twelve months out of the year. On private land hogs can be hunted anytime, even at night.Cooler weather fishing can be outstanding.But it's often...
Like to fight the ever so fast, hard fighting, Blackfin Tuna. The colder the better:
As the weather cools the Gag Grouper fishing gets HOT, very HOT!
Weather permitting a virtual mountain of fish are often harvested:
Look at the size of that Gag:
This is from our last 39 hour Middle Grounds trip. And this is just the beginning. It was the strongest Gag 'bite' of the season. Wait until you see October, November, and December:
We in the deep south love to eat, fish, and hunt.No better place than...
