Outdoors with Charley Soares: Florida, on the cheap (and beware barracudas)

It’s a long haul from Swansea to South of the Border.

Just putting that sentence on paper brings back memories of sore backs and leg cramps.

That South Carolina destination was usually a 16-hour daily marathon from our home, under most favorable traffic conditions. Anyone who has made that trip is usually tired of those repetitive signs, which seem to appear every few miles. "SOUTH OF THE BORDER: ONLY 9500 MILES AHEAD."

Our first visit there was a huge letdown. Once we arrive there we get off I-95 and look for a motel.

On one herculean trip, we made it to the Georgia border and stopped for fuel in a combination gas station and variety store in the same parking lot as the motel. I filled up and went in to get some munchies where I met a lovely Southern lady behind the counter. I asked her what her impressions of the motel were, and she said it was clean and comfortable, but! She pointed to the rigid inflatable boat and the rods on the roof of my van then to a group of a half dozen youths hanging around a station wagon and drinking beer. “Those kids are already spending the money they are going to get from selling your gear. If I were you I’d drive 12 miles down the highway to the next motel where the cops roust the kids out of the lots.” I thanked her for her warning and jumped in the car and drove to the suggested exit.

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Another long haul and we arrived at my brother-in-law Bob’s home in West Palm Beach where we unlocked the door and began grilling steaks and chourico on the barbecue. Shortly thereafter Bob, his wife and son AJ arrived to an unusual, yet much appreciated meal. We rested up in Palm Beach and Bob and I got in some good fishing out of Jupiter and Boynton inlets.

Before we wore out our welcome we headed out in the pre-dawn hours for the prolonged drive to Stock Island at the head of the Keys. Anyone who has made that run loathes being stuck on the single lane of US Route One, much of the daytime hours in bumper to bumper traffic, but it was all worth it.

My New England Fisherman editor at that time was Tim Coleman, a single man who bought a mobile home in Stock Island just before that community went condo. They privatized and modernized a beautiful area where he could walk out the front door of his home and step 25-feet onto a private boat ramp.

Tim had been fishing with me for decades, so when he called and asked what I was doing at the end of February, he very well knew the answer to his question. He told me that his condo would be unoccupied from mid-February through the second week of March, and my bride and I were encouraged to spend a few weeks there. We took him up on his offer.

Upon arrival Lola went in and began tidying up. I took the inflatable off the roof and began rigging it for our first fishing trip. Our host had talked about replacing the old blinds with curtains, so my bride had purchased a bolt of material and on windy or rainy days we measured and cut the material before bringing them to a local seamstress. Not a bad price for almost a month rent free in the Florida Keys.

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The little 5-horse Honda started on the first pull and quietly idled out of the harbor and along the mangroves where I had seen fish breaking in previous visits. My bride was tucked away in the bow reading a magazine and basking in the warm sunshine. We had departed Swansea in the pre-dawn hours and drove into a snow squall in New London then crawled down the Turnpike at low speed for about 100 miles until we drove through New York as temperatures dropped into the low 20s. We ran into icy road conditions in North Carolina and the weather did not improve until we reached Georgia. The warm sunshine of the Keys was a welcome relief from the chill of winter.

On my very first cast with an Al Gags bluefish bomb, I hooked into a savage little barracuda with a bad attitude.

At the sting of the rear treble that little five-pound Cuda went straight up in the air then took off for the cover of the tree roots, and it took all the pressure that little outfit could exert to put the brakes on that determined fish.

When that fish came alongside, and my wife saw those rows of needle sharp teeth, she panicked. “Don’t you dare bring that fish in this boat. It could puncture the tubes and sink us.” I wanted to take a few photos for my editor, but I used the pliers to disengage the hooks and send the little water wolf on its way.

On the early morning calms I sneaked out of the quiet harbor and outside to a patch reef where I was usually able to find a few fish for dinner and to share with a neighbor who kept watch on the home while Tim was back in Mystic. We did a lot of sightseeing including the Hemmingway residence and the Truman White House as well as Sloppy Joes and other eateries. We did not buy any gold jewelry at the Atocia museum where we enjoyed the movie detailing the search and the discovery of this gold-laden wreck, which was very interesting.

In no time our three weeks were up, and it was time to head back to winter. The reality was we were bored and were ready to get back home. I couldn’t wait to get to work on the boats and have everything prepared for the arrival of our first school stripers. We made that usually three day trip in two full days and I will never attempt that again. We didn’t do it to save money but it because I drove well into the late evening when there were no vacancies, in any motel we would be comfortable staying in so I kept on driving with the help of heavy doses of caffeine. In some places like Georgia and South Carolina we were the only vehicle on the road, with the exception of a lone trucker or two on stretches of road without lights or houses.

We arrived home at 3:30 a.m. and were greeted by a few inches of fresh snow on the ground. Regardless of the snow and sub-freezing temperatures, it was great to be home. I fired up the furnace from its 55-degree setting and warmed up the house quickly. For people who are early risers, we slept well into the late morning hours before we began to hassle of unloading the vehicle and packing our luggage away.

I would not and could not make that trip today. It was a grind that took a lot out of us physically, but the thought of getting on a plane without my rods, knives and other tackle is not in the cards. But we do have the memories of when we were able to drive day and night and spend almost a month in Florida. On the cheap.

Charley Soares writes his regular column, Outdoors with Charley Soares, for The Herald News.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Outdoors with Charley Soares: Florida on the cheap (beware barracudas)