Little Rivers

When I really sit down and think about it, the majority of my childhood fishing was done in canals of some type. We called them "little rivers," and that's really what they were. Bodies of water that connect to larger bodies of water, lakes or reservoirs connected to Lagoons that connect to the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. At least that's the way it works here in Florida. The entire state is crisscrossed with hundreds of these types of canals. Originally dug to drain what was swamp land into what would become fertile ground for citrus, sugar cane and cattle. Millions of acres were drained for these purposes, at the time it seemed like a great idea. Florida and the U.S. Government are now paying a high price for this foolishness, billions of dollars to clean up the Everglades, Florida Bay, Tampa Bay, the Indian River Lagoon and many other bodies of water here in Florida. At the time however Florida was just a piece of land where people could come and rape a fortune from it and then quietly move back to their homes in the Hamptons, leaving the rest of us here to suffer the consequences.

These canals "little rivers" also held fish, lots of them. Granted they didn't hold Rainbow and Brown Trout. You'll also never find a Brookie or a Muskie in any of them, but they do hold fish. The ones I grew up around held catfish and any number of species of panfish. The catfish were ugly, mean and the best fighters. The bluegills were the more attractive, neither however were as elusive nor as sought after as the turtles. Sure catfish and bluegills are fine species but nothing exuded manliness like catching a giant turtle. Big box turtles, box because that's what we carried them home in to show our Mothers who then promptly made us free the reptiles.

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