I recently completed a routine house and pet sitting
assignment for Amanda in St Petersburg, Florida. Her house is a typical, old
style, Florida cinder block home. It
sits in a quiet community, with most homes having direct access to a channel (canal
of some people call it) leading to Tampa Bay.
Boat docks outnumber pools, and backyard fishing is combined with
cookouts. Welcome, to coastal Florida
life.
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| The back of the house |
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| View from the patio |
A longtime friend and house sitting client referred me to
Amanda who’s an accomplished violinist and world traveler. She shares her home with pets that need to be
cared for while she travels. That’s
where I come in.
Even though the northeast U.S. was layering on the clothing
to keep warm, in Florida we were sporting shorts. Not all the time mind you, but more often
than not. In place of the northern
snows, we had our share of rain.
During those often day long rains, in between playing with the dogs, I spent a lot of time experimenting with different photography techniques and redesigning my website. How do you like the dropdown menu bar? I think it eases navigation process and gets you to a posting you want to read.
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| Jazzy |
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| Bella |
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| Bird in flight from the dock |
But on those days when the sunshine beckoned me, I grabbed my fishing gear and hit the surrounding waters. I did my share of fishing, both off the dock in the backyard, and from the shore in the waters of Tampa Bay.
One particular day, without a cloud in the sky, and air temperatures hovering around 80F, I loaded my Jeep and ventured out of the channel into the bay.
I like wading about waist deep to fish in our local bays. There are pros and cons in fishing this way with the biggest pros being deeper water, bigger and more fish. Some people think the hazards of stepping on a stingray or being found by a shark are too much to handle. Not me, I do the stingray shuffle (slide your feet while walking) and watch for fins and unusual water movements.
Bib-waders on, gear, and bait bucket strapped to my waist, I shuffle my way out. Entering the water I noticed some turbulence, it appeared to be a large fish or schooling fish were passing. Not over concerned, but curious, I kept my eye on it.
Almost immediately, I started getting hits and catching fish. Being a catch and release fisherman, unless, it’s a big, good tasting fish, I returned everything to live and fight another day.
Within 30 minutes of fishing, the turbulence returned. About 10 feet directly in front of me, a manatee surfaced for air. For the next hour or so, the manatee swam back and forth, almost always surfacing between 10 and 15 feet away.
An hour and a half later, the wind picked up, waters turned choppy, and fish stopped biting. Having caught and released a total of 10 fish, I called it a day. Eight of the ten were lady fish, a boney fish in the snook family, and the others were whiting, which are like a perch.
Sorry folks, another con of wading is you don't get action shots. I don’t carry a camera
into the water; no pix
During this assignment, I attended a couple local
events. The first be “Lights on
Tampa”. This was advertised as a large
number of buildings in downtown Tampa would be decorated with lights by
international lamination artists.
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| The only pix from fishing; before I released these guys |
Arriving around dusk I noticed there wasn’t many people and even less illuminated buildings. Putting it bluntly, it was over hyped.
Another event was the East End Volleyball Tournament was
located on Clearwater Beach. The following
pictures are of the Sunday finals.
Well that’s it for this sit.
Well that’s it for this sit.
Until next time,
Mike
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