By paddling enthusiast and self-proclaimed “fishaholic” Jack Roberts
Ahoy. My name is Jack Roberts, and the clever people at Coastal Angler Magazine think you might be interested in reading what I have to say about kayaking in the Treasure Coast area. So, to get your attention, here’s a little of my history on the water.
I grew up in Kearny N.J., an industrial town in the blighted heart of Sopranoland where the rivers are supremely toxic, and chromium and mercury are more likely to seep from the ground than spring water. But, strangely, from my youngest days I was obsessed with lakes, streams, fishing, and small boats. As a tyke, my favorite toy was a blue plastic canoe about the size of a large banana. Its pilot was a tiny wooden Indian who began life on a keychain, and because of the difference in scale, I believed for many years that canoes were about the same size as buses.
Later, after years of skillful pestering, my father allowed me to go to summer camp with the Scouts. For one blissful week I paddled actual canoes, rowed waterlogged cedar skiffs with wildly mismatched oars and caught shiners by the dozen on little white trout flies. The course of my life was set.
A true sea-change (sorry, couldn’t resist) took place when I was 13. My parents, bless them, bought a summer house in Belmar at the Jersey Shore, and for two wonderful months each year I became what we now call a “fishaholic”. A while later, the Beach Boys got to me, and for two summers I lived the surfin’ life. Then, in 1966, after high school, I got a job as a lifeguard and focused most of my aquatic energy on rowing and racing surfboats, although once or twice a week we would sneak out in the boats before bathing hours and fish for fluke, cooking the filets on a Coleman stove under the boardwalk.
Since then it’s all been kind of a blur. In 1973 I got my first teaching job and immediately bought a 17’ Grumman canoe. I paddled it thousands of miles on the lakes and streams of the eastern U.S. and Canada, fishing and camping along the way.
In 1984 I bought my first sea kayak and my miles travelled per year increased hugely. In the late ‘80’s sit-on top kayaks came to The Shore, and, of course, I paddled those and have owned at least one ever since. (Today, for reasons known only to me, I own four of them, along with three sea kayaks and one inner tube). In 1990 I started an Outdoor Education program for special needs students based on canoeing and kayaking, and for a few years I worked part-time for Rutgers University as a canoeing instructor and guide in the Pine Barrens. I could go on and on, but I’m already well over my 500 words.
In 2005 I retired to Florida and quickly hooked up with some maniacs from Boca who’ve become my regular paddling buddies. They like travelling long distances, and in February ’06 we made the first of our annual expeditions together, Sanibel to St. Lucie Inlet, 160 miles in seven days. The best part of that trip was an open water crossing of Lake O, from Clewiston to Port Mayaca.
And I haven’t slowed down since. I’ve paddled some beautiful South Florida waterways and met a lot of great people. I hope that, through these pages, you’ll soon be one of them.
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