Ep 187: Fly Fishing the South Florida Backcountry, with Michael Snoeck
Michael Snoeck is the owner of Backcountry Obsessions, specializing in backcountry light tackle and fly fishing in southern Florida. In this episode, we talk about what constitutes the backcountry when inshore fishing, the species and seasons of southwest Florida, getting into the Everglades backcountry, how he had a chance meeting with a previous podcast guest, and much more.
Website: BackcountryObsessions.com
Facebook: link
Instagram: @backcountryobsessionsswfl
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 187 with Michael Snoeck on fly fishing the South Florida backcountry. I start every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got into the outdoors and specifically into fly fishing so I'd love to hear how you were first introduced to fly fishing and we'll kind of take it from there to your guide service now.
Michael
I grew up in Michigan, fished the Great Lakes, freshwater all my life. Got down here in 2008 and I didn't get into fly fishing. I never fly fished up north growing up at all and didn't start fly fishing until about six, maybe seven years ago down here. So saltwater was the first thing that I had ever picked up a fly rod for. And I actually, the owner of Beaver Tail Skiffs asked me to fish a tournament. And I had messed around with a rod a little bit. And the first time I got serious with it, I fished a tournament for them with the Tampa Bay Water Keepers. And that was probably the longest I had ever spent on a fly rod in my life.
Katie
That's kind of crazy to have saltwater be your first fly fishing experience as somebody not growing up in that world. I'm sure there's plenty of people in the Gulf area that grew up saltwater fly fishing, but to be from Michigan and have saltwater be your first experience is kind of unusual.
Michael
Yeah, I didn't fish a lot of the, you know, I fished, I grew up in southeast Michigan. So I fished on the Detroit and St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair. I mostly did all big water fishing. I didn't fish the streams of northern Michigan and the trout. The salmon fishing that I did was big open water stuff, trolling type stuff. So I never really spent a lot of time growing up fishing streams for trout and things like that. It was more big water stuff that I was always exposed to.
Katie
And what were you catching?
Michael
Probably the number one fish that I spent most of my time catching was walleyes. And that was when the ice wasn't on. So I walleye fished most of the year, smallmouth bass, muskies. We have a lot of Great Lakes muskies in Lake St. Clair. And then the lakes would freeze over in the winter, and I'd spend most of the winter chasing panfish, perch, bluegills, crappies down here. They call them specks. But I spent most of the winter time ice fishing for panfish.
Katie
What took you down to Florida, and how did you get introduced to all that?
Michael
So I was a finished carpenter and had opened up a shop. I was working in custom homes back in Michigan. And one of my clients that I had done several homes for up there was building a place in Cape Coral. And he was a very eccentric guy and wanted his house down here to be along the lines of what he had up north and what he was used to, which was extensive woodwork throughout the entire house. And he brought me down here to Florida to have me look at the house. We came up with a plan. And I was originally going to manufacture everything up north, ship a truck down once a month. And I'd come down for a week or so. He had planned that we would hire a crew of carpenters down here to do the install. And when I got here with the first load, the guys that we had hired to install the stuff were lost. They were great carpenters, but they had never seen the things that we were going to do in the house. We had two full paneled rooms. So they were floor to ceiling, all wood rooms, one his, one hers office. We built all the interior doors for the entire house. We actually went, he bought a piece of property on the west side of Michigan. I went in with a logging crew. We logged out all the trees, cut and dried all the lumber at a mill that was close to where I lived in Michigan and used all that lumber to build all the interior doors for his house. It was 61 doors, I believe, all solid American cherry, did the jams and everything. We found the original, one of the first marinas that was ever put in on Lake Michigan up in Ludington, Michigan. They had just redone it and they pulled out all the old dock spilings and they were all different species of maple. And we he purchased all those spilings. We cut and dried all those, had them all hauled back to the town where I was living, had them all cut and dried. And we turned that into all the hardwood flooring for his house. So it was it was quite a project. I ended up, I had 18 men in the house for 18 months just to finish the woodwork on a 7,000 square foot house.
Katie
This guy is eccentric. Geez.
Michael
Very, very much so. Yes. He went to the extreme on everything. So it was a great job. But in the first year that I was down here, I stayed for Christmas. We were going to work most of it through, but I decided not to go back to Michigan for Christmas, for the holiday. It was 81 degrees on Christmas Day, and I said, that's it. I'm done shoveling snow. And the job lasted until I finished it up in the summer. We started it in the summer of 08. I finished it springtime of 2010. I went back up. I made one more trip back up, closed down the building that I had up there. and sold that, loaded up the rest of my machinery. And I came down here and reestablished my business and opened up a shop down here. I did that. Go ahead.
Katie
I was going to say, I think we talked about this when we fished together, but I don't think I could do 80 degree Christmas. That would throw me off. I need the snow and the cold, but it sounds like you're the opposite.
Michael
You know, it was, I grew up in it and I didn't know anything different. So we went through the seasons and, you know, I hunted and I fished all winter and sub-zero temperatures and you just accepted it. But there was something about that first year when I was here and it was 81 degrees on Christmas. I'm just like, I've had enough of this cold weather. I just, I'm, I can do this, you know. And the first year or two was kind of tough. I'd say the first two full season changes that I went through, if you want to call them seasonal changes. I was used to the heat and it was fine. It is, it's still a little bit weird. You know, you see people put up Christmas decorations and things, and it just doesn't feel the same because they're, they're putting lights on palm trees and stuff like that. So it seems kind of weird because I spent the first 35 years of my life there. I was like 35 when I came down here. And so it was a little bit of an adjustment, but I'll tell you, I wouldn't trade it now for anything. I wouldn't move back to the cold now at this point.
Katie
How did you take it from just getting into fly fishing down there to what you're doing now, taking clients out?
Michael
So I had my business down here. The business grew. I had shop full of employees and large facility and everything else. And I had put together a five-year exit strategy, if you will, that I was going to somewhat phase myself out of the company. I was getting tired of it, and it was just the stress involved. I was a manager. I wasn't doing what I originally got in a trade for, which was the woodworking. I dealt with customers. I dealt with employees and their problems and everything every day. So I had put together a plan that I was going to work my way out of the company. And by 55, I wanted to be out completely, whether I turned the company over and sold it off to a couple of my employees or I closed it down. And I started having some health issues and things. Wasn't feeling good. I got a liver infection. And it was all traced back to stress. And I needed to make a change. So I kind of fast tracked the five year plan and started guiding full time quite a bit sooner than what I had expected. And naturally, like I did with my woodworking business, you know, I found a niche in my business. I didn't compete with the with the box companies. I didn't compete with pre-made components and people that were purchasing things out of catalogs. I had a strong millwork background and we built everything. You know, I had rough lumber delivered to my shop and we literally produced everything from raw rough sawn lumber when I had my millwork company. Doors, drawers, cabinets. I had my own stain and finish operation. operation. We did all our own finishing ourselves. So I had in my mind that I was going to find that niche. And as I had gotten and spent my time down here in Florida, you know, I kind of poked around. I did a little bit of, met some guys and did some offshore fishing and I don't know, dropping a big chunk of meat to the bottom and reeling up a car door just didn't appeal to me. You know, it was fun to go and do once or twice a year, but it just didn't hold my interest. And then I got exposure to the inshore fishery. And it was more along the lines of what I, the way that I fished growing up, which I spent a lot of time fishing by myself. The things that I did, I ran a small 16 foot aluminum boat back home growing up. And it was something I didn't need anybody else to go and do it. When I wanted to go, I could just go. And inshore and flats fishing allowed for the same thing for me. And it really appealed to me stalking these fish in shallow water, being able to see them, the site fishing, like we did when we were out, you know, actually being able to see the fish. And as I started to put my plan together and say, all right, I'm going to, my next career, my next move is going to be guiding full time. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to stick to, I had never been a bait fisherman, even the whole time that I was down here and growing up back home, I never fished with bait. I always fished with artificial lures. So for me to make that transition down here and kind of pick up on these fish the same way, it was very natural to me. and it's what I enjoy to do. I enjoy the hunt, you know, and for me, it's not so much about actually catching the fish, it's the hunt. It's finding them, figuring them out, getting them to eat something that isn't real. You know, that probably to me is more excitement and more enjoyment than anything else. And I had been with a couple guys, went out one weekend with some guys that were fly fishing and man just the idea of chasing these same fish with a couple feathers and a chunk of fur tied to a hook that was just for me mentally that was like the ultimate was going to be the ultimate challenge and then when I first picked up a fly rod and you get a bite on a fly I just there's nothing better I mean I just I don't know I don't know that there's anything more that you can do to as far as making it a challenge and more of a sport than throwing a fly rod at a fish.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like especially saltwater, people are probably sick of hearing me say this at this point, but for trout, I actually feel like fly fishing is in many cases the more effective way to do it. Most people like the challenge of casting and things like that, But at the end of the day, trout are eating insects and the best way to mimic an insect is to use a fly. So I think that in some ways fly fishing is the easier route for trout. I don't think there's any world in which fly fishing is the easier route for any saltwater species compared to artificial lures or bait. I feel like fly fishing is absolutely the hardest way to do it. So I have to agree with you there.
Michael
Yeah. And it's anymore for me, it's the challenge, you know, and then the. because I wasn't into the bait trips and I decided that's where I wanted my niche to be. And that's, I enjoyed exploring the creeks and exploring the back country waters, being able to go out on days when, if you were fishing open water, you'd have to stay home because the weather wasn't going to permit it. And you really had no limits. You could go every day that you wanted to go. And I think there's a lot of situations that the presentation of a fly rod and a fly, you actually have a better chance. Tarpon specifically. Those fish, the middle of the day, you take a tarpon in the middle of the day when they're laid up and they're sleeping, You splash an artificial lure in by them. You splash a big live bait in on the water right in front of them as they're just sitting there relaxing for the day. And that big splash and that bait isn't what they're looking for. They're half asleep and they'll move and take off and go the other way. where a fly, if you can get that fly in front of them without them knowing how it got there, you can get a lot of laid up sleeping fish to eat in the middle of the day that you wouldn't normally be able to get to eat.
Katie
Interesting. I've never heard that take before. It makes sense.
Michael
Yeah. You've got to have clear water conditions to do it. You've got to be able to see them and have the right situation. But you can, I definitely think that a lot of times, even with real spooky fish, that the biggest challenge with a spooky fish is getting close enough without them knowing you're there. And that probably becomes the biggest challenge of all, more so than getting them to actually eat the fly, is getting within range and being able to make that cast and get that fly there without alerting them to the fact that the boat is there. You know, because the boat's pushing water, you're creating pressure on the water, noises involved, shadows involved. so I think that's as much of a challenge as actually trying to make the cast and get the fly in front of them.
Katie
You mentioned backcountry a little bit and how you're kind of getting into like the backwaters and I don't remember exactly how I found you when we were looking for a guide but I'm pretty sure I was just looking for like a fly fishing guide in the area and saw the name of your company Backcountry Obsessions and I was like well that sounds up my alley but I don't I don't usually think of kind of inshore south, like southwest Florida as being a backcountry area. I think a lot of people think of the Mountain West. There's, you know, places in New England that have little kind of mountain streams. And I think that's often what people think of when they think of backcountry fishing. So that was kind of a different experience for me to have kind of a saltwater backcountry. We didn't really do as much like true backcountry compared to what some of the trips you do. But I'd love to hear what backcountry means to you and your area that a lot of people might not think of.
Michael
So as you saw when we were down here, we have miles and miles of mangrove shorelines. And in a lot of our areas, as you get more, we have a lot of individual islands that are out in Pine Island Sound, Charlotte Harbor. The north end of the harbor has a large area that's full of small islands and everything. But a lot of our going into a lot of our mainland, there's a lot of creeks that run back into there, like Pine Island, for instance. There's all kinds of small creeks that feed back into the Pine Island mainland. And you have to have some type of a skiff to access it. A lot of it's real shallow. But it's mainly just mangrove creeks that lead to small ponds that are back on the island that you normally would never get to because we have a lot of area down here that's not every inch of our coast is consumed with people. There's a lot of it that is still very wild and very dense, very undeveloped. So even leading into Cape Coral, the area that we were in, Ding Darling, over on Sanibel, it's not as pronounced, but like the area that we fished in there, that was a pole and troll only zone. That for me, I consider that backcountry waters when you're not allowed to use a motor to access that stuff. That's a remote area. You know, it's not something it's not something that the average person is going to be able to go into unless they're willing to put in some effort and some work. And then it gets more. It's probably not there's not as much of it around here. And there's a lot. I mean, when I say not much, there's still probably a couple hundred miles of creeks that aren't accessible by any foot traffic. You'd never be able to walk to get to them. The only way that you can access these waters is from coming in out of a main body of water, whether it be Charlotte Harbor, Matlaché Pass, Pine Island Sound, get further south towards Estero Bay. And then it even gets more prevalent as you head further south and you get south of Marco Island, which is where 10,000 Islands starts. and that heading all the way south, all the way down into the Everglades and Everglades National Park down there. So it was just, it was the remoteness of all that stuff. And again, like I said, you know, it was the hunt for me and being able to find those creeks and explore places that you would normally never have access to. That to me was the essence of backcountry fishing. being able to get somewhere that people couldn't pull up to the edge of it in a car, or they couldn't just walk down a path and get there. It took some work and it took some adventure just to find some of these places and put yourself in there.
Katie
Yeah, this reminds me of a conversation I had recently with somebody about what constitutes backcountry, because a lot of people define it by how many miles are you from the nearest whatever. But I feel like for me, backcountry is often more of like a feeling. And that kind of goes into what you said there. It's just, it just feels remote. Like there's not a lot of people that can get there. And, you know, I've been places that I consider backcountry that are probably only half a mile to a mile from the nearest, you know, road or trailhead or whatever. But because no one's going there, you feel like you're a million miles from anybody. Meanwhile, you can hike 10 miles in. And if it's a popular trail, there's people everywhere. It just doesn't have that same feel. And so it sounds like you kind of have a similar thing there where, you know, we as the crow flies, we weren't terribly far from infrastructure, but we didn't see a single other boat in there when we were in there. And so it just feels like you're miles away from the nearest person, even if somebody, you know, is is in a car just on the other side of the mangroves there.
Michael
It is. And, you know, and that's one of the things that appealed. And that's one of the things that I consider, you know, is accessing places that you normally wouldn't be able to get to by pulling up in a car or walking down a path or something like that. That to me is probably would probably be my best definition of backcountry fishing.
Katie
Now, when you say the streams coming out, like I know you mentioned like on Pine Island, the streams come out and they lead up to like ponds and things. Is that still like salt water? Is it, is it like brackish water? What kind of species are in those streams coming out?
Michael
So we, we have some of the, it more depends on the time of year. Like right now during our rainy season, we're getting rain every day. So there's a lot of ponds and creeks that feed into our salt water, they become brackish this time of year because of the amount of rain that we have.
Katie
It's just so much fresh water pushing out.
Michael
Correct. Where in the winter, that salt will push and the salinity level will be very, very high all the way back in a lot of those creeks because we aren't getting any type of rain and there's no fresh water being added to it. So it really fluctuates throughout the year, just depending on the amount of rain that we get throughout the year.
Katie
Does that affect what fish you're finding in there? Do they move around to adjust to that?
Michael
Yeah, they most definitely do. You know, you take some of the fish like our juvenile tarpon, because we have tarpon that are here all year long, they never leave. Tarpon, actually, they have lungs along with gills, so they can actually thrive in water, in fresh water, and totally live in oxygen-depleted water completely and just strictly breathe air with their lungs. Snook have adapted very well and adapt pretty good to brackish water. There's even, there's some areas around here, there's some landlocked ponds. There's a park in particular over in Fort Myers Lakes Park, and they actually have a population of snook in the freshwater lakes over there that have adapted solely to freshwater.
Katie
I've never heard of this before.
Michael
Yeah, redfish need a little more salinity to their water. So once it starts getting more brackish, they will start to push out towards the fresh water or towards the salt a little bit more. The sea trout that are here all year long, they're definitely a straight saltwater species. I've never found them anywhere near the brackish water. They're going to stay in a salt-rich environment. And the redfish for the most part, too. Once we start getting a lot of rain and a lot of fresh water, it pushes a lot of those species out. Except for the tarpon. They will go back there and they will thrive in oxygen-depleted, stagnant, hot water. water that you wouldn't think even the mullets won't live in it and you'll find tarpon back there all year long in the dead of summer
Katie
because you brought them up I want to quickly ask about the mullets and we're not going to focus too much on them because they weren't a game fish or I don't know if they're considered a game fish but they they wouldn't eat anything that we would throw but I know I know we talked and that it was kind of on your bucket list if you will to try to figure out how to catch mullet on the fly have you made any progress with that do you how do you feel like an achievable goal to figure it out?
Michael
I actually do. So I've been having a conversation with a fellow over in Europe and I actually tie, I actually have a box tied of mullet flies. I have a couple dozen of them tied. I'm just coming out of my busiest part of my season. You know, for me, that February, March, April, May, June is, that's my busiest time of the entire year here. Just with the weather, people here on vacation, spring break, tarpon season. So I haven't had a chance to put, to tie on any of those flies yet and try them. But I am definitely over the next couple months of this summer, I am absolutely going to be working on it. I don't see why I won't be able to figure it out because the mullets that they're catching over in Europe, because I think I was telling you, this has become a big thing over there, them chasing and pursuing mullets on a fly. And it's the same species of mullet that we have here that's prominent here. We have two species. We have silver mullets and black mullets. The silver mullets are also called striped mullets. And that's the species that they're catching over in Europe regularly on flies. So I've tied up a box. I've got a couple dozen. And I'm looking forward to messing around with it. And I really, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to figure out. I mean, I'm sure it'll be a learning curve and retrieves and everything else, but there's definitely an abundance of them. You know, you can go out in a day and see thousands of mullets. So having a target to go after will be a little bit easier than finding something else. So I don't really see why it should be, I think it'll take some work, but I think it'll totally be achievable.
Katie
For anyone who doesn't know like what mullet are, can you just give like a brief overview of them. I only ask because I feel like people think of the typical saltwater species, you know, down the Caribbean, you might be thinking like bonefish tarpon permit in your area. There's more like redfish snook tarpon, I guess would be the three big ones I think of.
Michael
And in our sea trout.
Katie
Oh, right, right.
Michael
Yep. And our sea trout here.
Katie
But we were surrounded by mullets the entire day. So if someone went out and saw them, I think they might be like, oh, I want to catch one of those. But, you know, that wasn't really on our list. So just give an overview of like what they are and why we weren't targeting them.
Michael
Probably the thing that makes them the most difficult to try and catch is they're vegetarians. So they're not eating any type of fin fish for food. They're mainly eating algae and plankton. I have found out that there's a small shrimp called a sand shrimp. very, very tiny, like not microscopic, but very, very small in size, probably doesn't get any bigger than about a half an inch. And they inhabit all of our, our weed beds and grass flats. And that's a huge part of their diet are these small sand shrimp. And I don't know if they eat them intentionally or if they eat them just because they're getting the moss and the algae off the weeds that are down there. So they're not caught. They're fished commercially fairly heavily here in South Florida. And I believe even all the way up the Gulf Coast because they have them all the way up through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, all along the Gulf Coast. You've got the large mullet run that comes down the East Coast. So they have them all the way up through the Carolinas. I'm not sure how far north they go. If they make it up to Chesapeake Bay, I don't know if they get that far up. But we have a huge mullet run that comes down the east coast every year in the fall as they're heading south. So they've got to be up there a fair distance, at least Virginia and the Carolinas for sure. And I know they have mullets through the Caribbean. So we have them all the way through the Keys, all the way down to Key West. There's mullets that inhabit all those backcountry waters. They see them offshore. But they're mainly netted. Their largest use is the roe. And they're netted in the fall during roe season. And the eggs are sold for food. And then the meat itself, we have a lot of local fish markets around here. If you go out to Pine Island, you'll find some of the restaurants serving fried mullet. Smoked mullet is very popular in the fish markets in this area. And further south in Florida, through the Keys, you'll find smoked mullets. And then I think that there's a large portion of it that may go to other food sources. I'm not 100% sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was some of it put in cat food and things like that.
Katie
And they're very visible. I feel like we were out there mostly for redfish when we were seeing the mullets, but it seemed like the mullets outnumbered the redfish like 10 to 1, and they're jumping everywhere. So you can't really get away from them when you're looking for something else.
Michael
No, they're everywhere. They pretty much are in every inch of our inshore waters that we have around here. They thrive in warmer water. They thrive in shallower water. They're a schooling fish. So, you know, you're not going to find just one of them. There's going to be many of them when you find them. And at certain times of year, even the schools get even larger, especially during the fall season and early winter, which would be their closer to their spawning season when they're all full of eggs and they're schooled up. They get very big. I mean, I've seen mullets down here, five, six, seven, eight pounds jumping out of the water. Some of them as big as a baseball bat.
Katie
Well, it'd be exciting if you can figure it out because like I said, we're surrounded by them with a fish getting that large. It'd be fun to have a ton of big fish jumping around you that you could actually target.
Michael
Yeah. Be able to cast in any direction all day long and have a chance of getting the bite.
Katie
There were a lot of times I was looking over the side of the boat and being like, oh, there's something. And then it was always a mullet. It was rarely anything else.
Michael
They are good to have around. I tend to target a lot of my redfish, especially my redfish in areas where I see mullet activity because the mullets will get in there and they'll stir up the weeds and they'll be eating the algae and stuff. And in doing so, they're kicking up shrimp and crabs, small snails, things like that. So a lot of times you'll find redfish right with them or very close to them because they're in there eating all of the other small creatures that the mullets are stirring up while they're feeding.
Katie
That makes sense. what other species I know we've we've talked briefly like redfish tarpon you mentioned the speckled trout and snook those seemed like kind of the main species that you're going after maybe just give a little overview of how you target them specifically in kind of a backcountry manner you're not just going out and you know chucking bait and lures for the most part we do do a little spin fishing with some artificial lures, but more of these like light tackle and fly fishing kind of backcountry settings. How are you targeting the various species and kind of what's their seasonality?
Michael
So we have redfish here. We have redfish, snook, and trout here 12 months out of the year. And we have resident tarpon here, mostly juveniles, a lot of smaller fish in the backcountry waters. And we're blessed to have them here 12 months out of the year. Their habitat, the areas that they like to be in changes a little bit. Their mood changes through the winter and the colder months. Our tides are a lot lower. We have a lot of real negative tides, a lot of real shallow water. So their behavior changes a little bit. They spend a lot of time hanging out on the deep edges because areas that right now, this time of year, would have two to three feet of water on them. A lot of times in the winter is dry land. It's dirt. There's no water there at all because our tides are so much lower. We don't have our fin fish for bait, our white bait, our scaled sardines, our greenbacks, our pilchards. Those baits, they're not here in the winter. So their diet changes a bit. They get more keyed in on eating shrimp and crabs, snails, worms, and things like that that are in the weeds and around the mangroves. When I'm targeting my fish, I look at this fishery as being two totally different things. I feel like we have fish that spend the majority of their life and they tend to be more related to our miles, hundreds of miles of mangrove shorelines and the potholes and the flats that are just off from them. And then I think we have another group of fish that spends most of their time in deep water. And they, on our, maybe our intercoastals, the passes that we have that lead out to the Gulf. The backcountry fish, kind of self-explanatory. You know, they're spending most of their year in shallower water around the bushes. and we're targeting them in the winter during the shallow water times. We spend a lot of time chasing tailing redfish up on the flats because there's not enough water for them to be in the bushes. It's a lot of dry land back there at those times of year. So they'll spend most of that time, their feeding time, up on the shallow grass flats. And we can actually chase, we spend a lot of time chasing them and pursuing them in less than a foot of water, which is a ton of fun in the winter months. And then, you know, we have a lot of oyster beds. We have a lot of, we have a lot of sandbars. And I think that our fish that tend to live in the deeper water and spend most of their life in the deeper water, I think that they frequent those areas on the edges because our bars will be like on the edge of the channels, the edge of the harbor has large sandbars that pretty much go all the way around it and through it, through the middle of it. So I think that those deeper water fish, and I don't think that those fish tend to make it up towards the mangroves a lot. I think there's some of those fish that, some of the backcountry fish that never make it out into the middle of the harbor. And I think that there's some of those deep water fish that they don't have anything to do with mangrove shorelines. So it really, it sets up a real diverse fishery for us. You know, it allows us on days when the weather is bad and the weather's not going to cooperate, we still have places that we can go and catch fish. And then on our nicer days, we can go out and target fish that we're doing something totally different for. You know, we could spend our morning fishing in 6 to 18 inches of water. And in the afternoon, we could be fishing the edge of a channel in 8 to 12 feet of water, catching the same species, but doing two totally different things to target them.
Katie
And how does that compare to your Everglades trips, like species-wise and techniques-wise?
Michael
So the Everglades is a real unique place. Down there, I've actually, in one day down there, I fished so far back into the back country down there that I caught redfish, snook, juvenile tarpon, and a largemouth bass all in the same day. That last one's not a species I group with the rest. Right. But that was just, that's how far back. And the redfish wasn't far from the largemouth bass, which was really surprising. So, you know, the Everglades itself, when I, for myself and my fishing, when I think of the Everglades, I like to go out of Flamingo. The main reason is that it offers two totally different fisheries down there. There's a set of locks at the ramp, at the boat ramp in Flamingo. And if you put in at the one boat ramp, you go out and you access Florida Bay, which is part of the Gulf. That runs, if you run due west out of Flamingo, when you come out the canal, you'll end up in Isla Morada, or due east, I should say. you end up in Isla Morada. As you get about halfway across Florida Bay and you're going through Whipray Basin is about in the middle of Florida Bay. When you get to the east side of Whipray Basin, the whole topography and the makeup of Florida Bay changes. On the west side, closer to flamingo and closer to 10,000 islands and getting back into the Everglades, we have a lot of turtle grass. There's a lot of sand bottom. It's more like what I'm used to fishing around here. When you get further over to the east side, there's a lot of hard bottom. The type of grass, and I really don't know what all the different types of grass are, but there's a lot of limestone over there on the bottom. There's a lot of rock. And once you get over to the other side, you start to see the species change a bit. So on the west side, we'll have our standard snook, redfish, tarpon, trout. Once in a while, we may come across some permit over there. But when you get to the east side, you have all those species, plus you add more permit and bonefish into the equation on the other side. So it's really a cool place to go. And then if you launch on the, I guess you would say the north side of the locks, that takes you back up into Whitewater Bay. And again, what I would consider all the backcountry of the Everglades because it's quite a long run. If you go out the north side into Whitewater Bay, you have to run west probably close to 20, I'm going to say probably close to 20 miles, maybe a little bit further before you can actually get out into the open gulf again. which that entrance is Shark River. So it's quite an expanse of area. I've been down there for days, literally 17 days was the longest that I fished down there, that I never saw another boat while I was on the water. I saw people at the marina in the morning when I was putting in and in the afternoon when I came back. But while I was actually out fishing during the day, I never saw another boat for 17 days.
Katie
How reliant are you on like electronics to navigate when you're in a place like the Everglades?
Michael
Well, when I first started going down there, my electronics were very, very basic. I had a basic Garmin unit and the unit that I had, I would say that at least 50% of the time that I was in the backcountry area, this isn't the Florida Bay side, but in the backcountry side, my unit would actually show that I was on dry land. It didn't even show that I was in the water, but yet I would spend 12 hours back there fishing in creeks. I relied on it because it would still plot a course for me and it would show my track that I had created as I went in and as I fished all those creeks and fished up through that whole area. So at least I had a reference to get back out. The map wasn't showing that I was on water. It was showing that I was all on land, but I could follow the track and by looking at the track on the screen, it would get me back out. I picked out the stuff that I wanted to fish and look at, though, when I was using that original unit, I was using a map to find where I wanted to go and the areas that I wanted to access because my electronics didn't show me anything. So I explored a lot of it, just only having a map as a reference, because my screen that I was looking at was pretty much useless, except for being able to follow a track back out at night and not have to get lost in there after dark.
Katie
Yeah, it just seems like a place that you could very easily get lost and have no idea how to get out of.
Michael
Yeah, I spent a couple nights back there, not by choice, but because we just got too far back and we did get lost in there. Even with the track that I had, it was a very basic unit and we still got lost back in there. I spent a couple nights, again, not by choice, but we just ran out of time and ran out of light and we weren't going to do it. And it's really cool. They have what they call chickies back there. I don't know if you've ever heard of those, but they have platforms out in the middle of nowhere with a roof over them. So it's kind of cool to actually stay out on them. You learn real quick though about the seasons and the times of year. You definitely don't want to try and stay back there during the summer months. the mosquitoes and the bugs at night. I don't know that you could survive a night back there in July or August. Even September is really tough. If it's raining every day, you're going to have an overwhelming amount of bugs back there.
Katie
Do the chickies have any sort of like bug netting around them or is it just a platform and roof?
Michael
It's just a platform and a roof. The only thing you have besides the platform and the roof is what you take with you. So a lot of people that stay out there, they'll take, they make real lightweight tents that are almost just like screen tents, not even any type of sides because it's plenty warm, you know. You don't have to worry about temperatures or anything, but just something to keep the bugs off from you at night.
Katie
Yeah, I'm looking at a map of the Everglades right now. I'm just looking at like Google Earth. And it is like incredibly remote and complex. Like it's just an endless network of ponds and little connector streams. And like I said, I could see it being kind of scary to get back there and not be able to figure out how you get back out. Because it seems like you could, it's like you're stuck in a maze. I mean, you choose the wrong creek a couple of times and you're completely turned around. And, you know, I assume people have gotten lost back there and not been able to find their way back out.
Michael
Oh, there's no doubt in my mind. You know, I never, I don't know, for me, I always enjoyed the adventure, maybe too much. So I never really worried about it. I took precautions when I went in there. I always made sure that, you know, if I'm going fishing around here, you might throw a sandwich on the boat for the day and have a couple bottles of water with you and you're good to go. When I go down and I'm going to fish the backcountry in the Everglades, I make sure that I've got food and water for two days, that if something happens down there, because it's very possible. And even you think about equipment failure. You know, we try to maintain our boats and our motors and everything as good as we can, but things happen. And you never know if a motor breaks down and you're back in the middle of nowhere, you might be back there for a day or two until you can get out, especially if you've got to use a push pole to get yourself out.
Katie
Do you have to book the chickies in advance or is it kind of first come first serve thing?
Michael
So I was just told last year by somebody that you now are supposed to check in at the ranger station and tell them that you're going to be on one. I know that years ago when I first started going down there, probably 10 or 11 years ago, it was first come, first serve. But I never saw anybody on one. I never pulled up to one and people's gear was on there or anything. So I don't know how much they're used. I mean, I'm sure they're frequented by people, but it's just so remote and there's so many of them. But I do think that now I was told last year that you're supposed to check in at the ranger station and let them know that you were going to be on one so they could avoid multiple people showing up on one.
Katie
Yeah, because I could see getting the whole way back in there and you're kind of counting on having one. And then, you know, sun's going down, you show up and somebody's already there. And now you're trying to navigate in the dark to a different one. That could also get kind of sketchy. So I think as much as I like keeping the backcountry the backcountry, I do understand kind of the need to let someone know in advance that you plan to be in one of those so people can plan accordingly.
Michael
You know, and it doesn't help. It doesn't hurt back there in that environment either to let them know that you're going in on an adventure like that in case something did happen. because even because of the wildlife and everything that's back there, you know, it's full of crocodiles back there. We now have the invasive Burmese pythons that are in there. There's panthers all throughout the Everglades and anything can happen. I mean, it's, it's the wild and there's no, there's no telling what you might come across. You know, I've, there's some areas in there that I can tell you that I'm very, very cautious. You know, I don't think anything about in this area, getting a fish up to the side of the boat and reaching down in the water and grabbing hold of the fish and pulling it out of the water. And I can tell you down there that if I can't grab the leader and pull the fish, safely pull the fish up and get a hold of it with just the leader, that I'm using a net down there. I don't put my hands in the water down there at all. A lot of it's very dark, especially in the backcountry. It's a lot of brackish, dark black water, a lot of real muddy water out in Florida Bay area. And I've had the shark problem down there is out of control like it is everywhere in this area, in all of South Florida right now. The sharks are just, they're off the chart how many of them are around, way more than what they ever used to be. And so, no, I don't let my customers put their hands in the water, and I don't put my hands in the water anymore down in the Everglades.
Katie
Last thing I wanted to ask about that's kind of a little bit unrelated, but it's kind of a funny coincidence, is you said you fished with Ryan Burch recently. I did. He was recently on the podcast, so I'm curious how you got hooked up with him.
Michael
So one of my regular clients, fly clients that lives up in Punta Gorda, just north of here, he fishes with me, I don't know, 20 days a year. He called me early April, and he had days on the calendar with me already in May. He had two weeks booked with me. And he said, hey, listen, this following week, he said, I need two days, another two days with you. He says, I've got a guy coming down. He said he's doing this documentary called, what is it? Is it Fishing the 48 or Exploring the 48?
Katie
It's Tales of the 48.
Michael
Tales of the 48. That's what it was. I was trying to think of exactly what it was. So he says he's telling me, he says he's doing this project, Tales of the 48. He said it started. He's a school teacher up in Vermont. He said, I graduated. Now, this guy, he's 76 years old this year. He says, I graduated from that same school that he teaches at in Vermont. He said, we started several years ago a program to get the kids in the school into fly fishing. He said, I've been funding that project ever since its inception. and he says, I'm funding a large portion of this project, Tales of the 48. And he said he's going to be making his way down here to Florida. And he says, I'd like to have you guide for us for the couple days that he's going to be down here. And it just, and then he said his name and I had watched the podcast, you know, and we had talked about him a little bit on the day that we were out. So it was really cool. He came down. He spent the first day. It was just him and I and my other client, John Hoder is his name. And then the second day, his sister fished with us also. She did a lot of the filming and the videography of it. And then he was heading down to, he was going to, he wanted to go down and see Key West. So he was driving down to Key West and making like a three-day round trip down there by himself. And I told him, I said, well, listen, you're going to be, you've got to come back up through here. Why don't you, I've got, I don't know what, I think it was the Tuesday open. I said, why don't you stop back through? I said, I'd love to have you out because the first two days that we fished together, we fished my client's boat. He has a 26-foot Cravel. Not the greatest situation for fly fishing off him, but we get the job done and it's bigger. It allows us to take more people, easier to have filming done on it and everything else. But the third day when he was coming back through, I was actually able to get him on my skiff for a day. So we went back out and obviously in a 26-foot boat, we had to fish a lot more open water and bigger water. And then on the third day that he came back, I was able to take him back through and show him a lot of the backcountry waters in what I consider backcountry fishing of southwest Florida down here. So it was kind of cool to spend three days with him.
Katie
Well, yeah, I'm excited to see the documentary when it comes out. I'm not sure. I need to reach back out to him. I think I was going to have him on again closer to the end of his project, which I think might be coming up soon. But I'm curious to hear when that documentary, or if it's going to be a series, I'm not sure, is going to come out. Maybe I'll get to relive my trip with you seeing it in the documentary.
Michael
Yeah, that would be pretty cool. He said that he was hoping to wrap up his, if he stayed on schedule, he'd be wrapping up his filming by the end of August.
Katie
August is also the month I had in my mind, so I bet that's correct.
Michael
Yep. And then he figured that he was going to have three or four months of putting everything together and editing and working on the production of the film itself. So we hope that sometime right after the first of the year that he would have the documentary ready to view.
Katie
Gotcha. Well, yeah, I'll be keeping an eye out for you. It'll be fun to see those areas again through somebody else's lens, not just my own.
Michael
We actually got him on a tarpon the very first day. It was late in the afternoon. I had a bunch of laid up fish on a sandbar. He got a good shot. He did end up breaking it off. It was his first experience, first time hooking a 100-pound fish on a fly rod. So it takes a little bit of getting used to, to say the least.
Katie
Yeah, I'm guessing most people don't land their first 100-pound tarpon on a fly.
Michael
No.
Katie
You probably have to break a couple, pop a couple off before you finally get one in.
Michael
You know, I try whenever possible to kind of ease somebody into it. If I've got some smaller fish or something, get him on some fish in the 30, 40, 50-pound class, something that's a little more manageable. But it just so happened that the best shot that he got all day long was at 100-pound fish, and he made a great shot. He's great on a fly rod. Really, really a good caster with a fly rod, especially for doing mostly small stuff. And then he gets on the boat with us, and I hand him a 12-weight in the morning. and here you go and he did surprisingly well with it all day long but he hooked the fish and he needed to let go of it I mean he got it he did a good strip set on the fish and he came tight but that fish wanted to go and he didn't let go of the line so and I'm fishing all 16 pound class leaders I'm fishing IGFA class 16 pound setups so So he popped that 16-pound like it was nothing.
Katie
Yeah, that reminds me when we were out, and I don't know if you saw the flash, but Mike was stripping in some little green fly. And I mean, I can't estimate size, but what was a longer-than-I-am-tall fish took his fly and was immediately gone, and we saw the big flash. That was probably the biggest fish I've ever had an encounter with via a rod. Mike had the rod in his hand, but I think we were both a little caught off guard when we saw it.
Michael
Yeah, that's a whole different animal. There's definitely a learning curve, and I try really hard when I get new clients on the boat. I try to talk with them all morning long and prepare them mentally. But, you know, you go from zero to 100 in about three seconds when it actually happens. And there's so much there and there's just, it's a fly rod, you know, and you're just, you're trying to battle that huge fish and there's so many variables involved in it. It's a great sport. It's a lot of fun. And I find that, you know, people that do it, they're there for the love of the sport. You know, it's definitely not, you're not pursuing tarpon on a fly rod because you're looking for, to catch a bunch of fish in a day. It's, it's that one bite. It's the shot. So we've landed, I've brought 26 to hand this year. I've landed on a fly rod this season. Most of them in May. I had a couple in April, but we've had a, we've had a really good year. I had a new client this year to fish the Tarpon Fly Invitational. I found a young guy, mid-30s, strong, full of energy, practices every day. And we actually won the Tarpon Fly Invitational this year.
Katie
Oh, that's awesome.
Michael
Yeah, it was very cool. Two-day event, 30 boats. We won on time. There were only five fish hooked out of 30 boats in two days. It's a point tournament. So landed fish, fish brought to hand are 750 points. Fish that you get the leader in the rod are 250 points. But there was only five fish hooked by 30 boats in two days.
Katie
And you got one to hand?
Michael
Yeah, I got our fish to hand. We hooked the fish at fishing time started at 6:30 in the morning. He hooked the fish at 6:51 the first morning, and I had it in my hands at 7:01.
Katie
Well, that's a good way to start a tournament.
Michael
That was a good way to start a tournament.
Katie
That's how you get your confidence up for the rest of the day.
Michael
Yeah, he was psyched about it. It was good. There was only one other fish brought to hand, and it came down to time. You know, they got their fish the first day also at, I don't know, I want to say 11, 30, 12 o'clock later that day. But it was all based on time because it was only one fish, one other fish that was brought in.
Katie
Gotcha. Well, Mike, just to wrap up, where can people find you if they want to book a trip? I can recommend you. We had a great time out with you in Florida. And, you know, we don't really know what we're doing in saltwater and still had some success. So I would highly recommend people joining you if you want to share where they can do so.
Michael
Yeah, you can find me at, I have a full website at backcountryobsessions.com. I post regularly on Facebook, try to do a couple posts a week so that if they look on Facebook, Backcountry Obsessions, you'll see what's going on and what we're catching and what we're targeting. I kind of change up my program as we go throughout the year. Certain things are better. Certain things are, you know, bigger fish different times a year and stuff. So they can follow me on that. And I just started posting on Instagram. I don't have a whole lot on there yet. And I'm kind of getting used to it because it's a different platform. And I'm not the greatest with the technical stuff. Or they can call me direct at 239-281-4700.
Katie
Well, Mike, thanks again for joining me. Like I said, I would recommend if anyone's coming to, I don't know. I know you have a much wider area. We were in Sanibel, but if anyone's in Sanibel or kind of that general area, Fort Myers area, check out Mike's Guide Service. It was a lot of fun and has a success. Got to fish all kinds of different water. And especially for the kind of backcountry focused crowd that I'm typically talking to, I think your trips would be kind of what they're looking for in a saltwater experience. So just thanks for joining me today and hopefully we fish together again soon.
Michael
That's great. I look forward to it. Thank you so much for having me on.
Katie
All right. That's a wrap. thank you all for listening if you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes you can find those on fishuntamed.com you'll also find a contact link there if you want to reach out to me and you can also find me on instagram at fish untamed if you want to support the show you can give it a follow on apple podcasts or your favorite podcasting app and if you'd like to leave a review it would be greatly appreciated but otherwise thank you all again for listening I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode take care everybody
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