Everything in nature is connected
– Excerpt from South Florida’s Fishing Paradise

During the long lazy days of summer, the types of baitfish changed. It was primarily a mix of pilchards and other white baits. There were always dork jacks under the lights at night, and for the most part, there were still plenty of ballyhoo and goggle eyes in the shadows. As the water warmed up, snook and tarpon showed up in large numbers – numbers you could never imagine today. The pace of the fishing slowed down. The snook and tarpon were always around just at line’s end. Compared to spring and fall, it could get downright boring at times. With the crowds thinned out by the heat, we basically had the pier to ourselves. The one constant was the afternoon thunderstorms. Every afternoon about two-thirty or three o’clock, massive thunderheads came rolling in from the west over Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ River of Grass, the Florida Everglades.

The massive clouds looked more like giant balls of cotton awash in ivory, blacks, deep ultramarine purples, intense pinks, and washed-out greys billowing up into the atmosphere like a hydrogen bomb that just went off. The thunder could be deafening; the lightning was downright terrifying. But, over the years, I began to enjoy the storms. Regardless of how old I get, I will always associate summers in South Florida with massive thunderstorms rolling across Marjory’s beloved everglades. It was a slow time, a time to be kids, and from what I remember, it was good to be a kid.

There were times I would show up at the pier, roll out fifteen or twenty rods, and not string up a rod for days. We would stand around and stare into the abyss, just watching and waiting. Waiting for what, who knows? We were always learning from the older kids and tried to imitate everything that made them successful. We told stories, and we ragged on each other until we couldn’t stop laughing. We spent hours on end in the diner drinking milkshakes, gorging on salty French fries just talking about the things we loved. For the most part, the conversations always came back to fishing or our beloved Miami Dolphins. 

By Jim Stenson