by Dan Carns
I grew up fishing the streams and back-waters of Georgia and Alabama, eventually moving to the coast where saltwater rules. Due to some water quality issues we were having here in SW Florida, I decided to refocus some time closer to those old roots.
There is a large drainage canal in N.W. Cape Coral called the Alligator Slough that I cross every day to get home and under this bridge is a flood control dam that splits the slough in two, so we’ll call them the upper and lower sections. There is a new access point on NW 27th St. off of Chiquita Blvd. at the top of the lower section, so I launched one beautiful morning and spent 4 hours exploring this canal all the way down to Burnt Store Rd. Immediately upon entering the water, the shore line is lily pad lined and as I suspected the largemouth bass were under them, so I plopped a rubber frog against the shoreline and started a slow relieve back across the pads. My first five casts yielded five bucket mouths in the two lb. range and seemed to be holding to a pattern, so I switched to a big rubber worm from Gambler Baits and my next cast changed everything! This fish was five lbs., as was the next, mind you I’ve never fished this body of water so I’m just trying to figure it out and boy is it stunning. As I move downstream, the shallow lily pad covered banks drop off into deeper water, so I switched over to a diving plug and sure enough I encounter more medium size largemouths hanging on the drop offs and this scenario, shallow water to deep water, repeats itself all the way to the Burnt Store weir. Four hours of targeting and catching these fish yielded about 60 fish, but no real record breakers, as I often see anglers in little boats plying the same water as well, as every bridge in this lower section holds a couple of anglers every day. People who fish with me understand that I’m no trophy hunter, I just want to put a bend in my rod and have a great time fishing!
One month later I put my kayak in the upper section off of Wilmington Pkwy at the very top of Cape Coral into a waterway that receives no pressure from the public. This section is skinny, about 25’ across and around 6’ deep most of the way as far as I travelled. There are periodic sections that widen and flatten out with expected lily pad hide-outs. There seemed to be fewer fish, but mostly in the larger class and they jumped on every kind of lure I used as they don’t see many artificials (lures) and competition for food is fierce.