Manatee speed zones coming soon to Flagler

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

I would like to wish everyone a happy and healthy new year and good fishing in 2013.

A couple of things will be changing for our area in 2013, according to one of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers I was speaking to the other evening.

He told me that the manatee speed zone signs should be implemented soon. The areas affected are as follows: the area of Gamble Rogers State Park, the area from the State Road 100 bridge north to and including Lehigh Canal (Sea Ray canal) and the area around the toll bridge in Palm Coast.

The speed zones will be in effect from May 1 through Sept. 7. Just watch yourself once these signs go in because the fines for speeding in a manatee zone can get very expensive. He also informed me that Bings Landing is being expanded. The expansion area is going to have a special launch area for kayaks. I’m not sure if the expansion will include more boat trailer parking, though.

I spent a couple of days last week looking for redfish in the Tomoka Basin. The water in the basin, which is usually brown, is very clear right now. When in the shallower parts, you can see everything on the bottom. Unfortunately, the fish can also easily see you, and they can be very spooky. This happened to be the case the first day I was there.

Bill Bohler and I launched at the ramp in the park and headed across the basin to the north shoreline. We shut the engine down and dropped the trolling motor. Within 100 yards, we came upon a school of about 50 reds that we spooked. The fish were swimming in all directions to get away from us, and once they are in that mode, it’s hard to get them to eat. This happened to be the case most of the day. We probably saw more than 100 redfish that day, but no matter what we threw at them, we couldn’t get them to eat.

I saw Capt. Kent Gibbens in the area, so I called him on the phone and he told me he was having the same problem.

The next day in the basin, the same thing happened. But we didn’t see nearly as many fish.

Hey, some days it just happens like that. That’s why they call it fishing and not catching.

I went out the other afternoon to do some fly fishing. I was using a slow-sinking fly line and wound up with a couple of keeper flounder and a couple of small trout. As the sun started to set, I changed to a floating line and I began to hammer the trout. Just as darkness started to set in, I landed a couple of really nice trout in the 3- to 5-pound range.