Creek Fishin'

Joe's Creek, the starting point of nearly every one of my childhood adventures. Today, kids have the internet, social sites, cell phones and video games to keep them entertained; I had Joe's Creek. The possibilities of what I could do during a day at the creek seemed endless: Fishing, hunting with slingshots and BB guns, snake catching, fort building, manhunt, rock fights, treasure digging, rafting on big sheets of Styrofoam we would get from the old concrete factory up the creek, and the list could go on and on for years. Me and Joe's Creek have a lot of fond memories together. My mom always warned me that I was going to get an amoeba up my ear and in my brain from spending so much time in that dirty water.

Somehow I eluded that amoeba and reached adulthood. I've had to trade in daylong adventures at Joe's Creek for  having a job. But me and Joe's Creek still keep in touch. I own a house about a block away from old Joe and my parents still live in the same house where I grew up; their property backs right up to Joe's Creek. These days my brothers and I keep our archery targets at my parent's house and get together regularly to shoot bows by the creek. While we shoot bows our kids go down and carry on our tradition of Joe's Creek adventures. I often take my two oldest boys bass fishing there and it's not uncommon for them to catch a dozen bass in an hour or two of fishing.

Today, after working this morning, I was fixing my boat trailer lights and got the urge to wet a line. A cold front just pushed through yesterday leaving strong north winds, not the best conditions for taking the boat out fishing, so I decided to give Joe's Creek a visit for old times sake. When the water in Boca Ciega Bay gets cold, the snook will push up into Joe's Creek making the possibilities interesting. Bass, snook, redfish, sheepshead and even baby tarpon will venture up into the creek this time of year.

I parked near the 66th Street bridge and started walking the creek line throwing a small gold Zoom jig. I saw a handful of big snook lazily swimming around and laughing at my lure. I walked all the way to the 54th Ave. bridge with only two small strikes to show for my multitude of casts. As I made my way back I switched to a small lime green Mirror Lure 17MR and connected with a little snook that thought he was a ladyfish. He was out of the water more than he was in it as I reeled him in. A couple casts later I connected with another little baby snook. Its nice to see that they're coming back after the cold winters a couple years ago took quite a toll on em'. Under the 71st Street bridge I saw a big snook whack a school of finger mullet so I switched to my bigger 25MR Mirror Lure hoping to blend in with the schools of finger mullet. No such luck.

My wife called and reminded me that I was a grown-up now and had to get home. I cast a few times at the same group of big snook that laughed at my jig earlier and they laughed at my Mirror Lure as well. When I was almost back to the 66th Street bridge, where I parked my car, I decided to take a few more casts at the last hole where a little side ditch empties into Joe's Creek. I switched back to the little 17MR lure and right away got smacked! I reeled in a nice fat Joe's Creek bass. A few more casts and I reeled in her twin sister. Two snook and two bass, not bad for a little afternoon fishing at my favorite childhood tromping grounds. I'm thinking about going back for more soon. Looks like me and Joe's Creek still have some memories to make.