Doug, Baker, and I set out for a new place to set up camp on Boca Chita. We traveled across Biscayne Bay for a quick weekend session searching for bonefish, permit, or anything else that may provide a tight line. The ride across was an ass-bruising wet ride but filled with great anticipation of putting Doug on his first bonefish. As we reached our destination, we found very little dock space and a marina filled with super boats. Good thing we arrived in the Action Craft in order to squeeze in amongst the giants. The welcome party of Cuban families allowed us to pull in and set up camp with great direction from Jorge, a veteran pleasure boater of Biscayne. After unloading the gear, our fishing bugs took over and we headed towards the flats. The weather had been cold for a couple of days causing the water temps to drop and the area to be empty. As we polled around the edges, all by ourselves, we were encountered by another pleasure boater who did not understand boating etiquette. There was not a boat insight for at least a mile all around us and we were working hard on the flats, but this guy insisted that he come as close as possible to us. After exchanging some brief, but unprintable words, we moved on. Unfortunately, we did not find success in these areas, so we moved back to camp and started to get ready for the dinner catching mission. We set up on a known area to hold snapper and began to put out some of Bakers special chum balls and sure enough, they worked. We caught plenty of dinner snappers to go along with our lobster gifts given to us from our buddy Dave. This was the first time that I ate lobster fritters and damn were they delicious. So after dinner and my buddies stirring up their rum buzzes, we searched around the island for some spots to get a shark on the line. Again no luck, so we called it a night for fishing and prepared the gear for some action the following day. The Cuban families had tremendous set-ups of food, drinks, music, and crazy light shows on their boats which provided us with great entertainment for the evening. The next morning we set out south to find some moving fish, but again we came up empty. All together the fishing was slow but we had a kick-ass time relaxing out in the bay, as you can see from the picture of Doug getting a near shrimp lip!
Scott Everett
