(Editor's note: What a surprise to get a message from our old friend, Capt. Dan, and find out he's ready to fish again. He suffered severe injuries in a motorcycle accident late last year and has been recuperating and rehabbing since then. We're glad to have him back!) What a great day. Saturday March 4th at 8:15 in the morning I get a call from my Citrus Co. buddies, and they tell me to meet them at the boat ramp at the Cross Florida Barge canal.
I'm always ready to fish, so I was out the door in 20 minutes. Captain Matt has a new 21ft. aluminum boat with a 90 horse Evinrude on it and all the goodies to make up a fine fishing craft. We started out up the canal on the way to the dam. Stopped on the way and 1st mate John Boga caught a 23-inch redfish pretty quickly. I caught a mudfish. Whoopee.
From there we went all the way out the barge canal and headed over to the hot water discharge canal at the power plant. Of course, we ran aground between the islands out there, and had to push ourselves off the bar. We were held up about 15 minutes only. We anchored as far in the discharge as we could.
The water there is warmer than the surrounding waters- about 10 degrees warmer at this time of year. His thermometer said 78 degrees in the canal. I reached to feel it, and it felt like bath water.
We caught a few mangrove snapper there. What was really neat is there were several manatees there in the warm waters and it looked like they were mating. You know, 1 cow and 5 or 6 bulls thrashing the water about. Quite a sight.
From there Matt took me back in time to a place off the Withlacoochee river to try for a few 'butterbellies'. Butterbellies are freshwater catfish that have a yellowish underside. This site was off the river in an unmarked canal. We tied up to the bank, got out and walked through dense woods to an opening at a small pool, 10 ft. wide and surrounded by flat limestone rock.
There's one hole in this pool that is 2ft wide. Drop your line in the hole and watch your line pay out and down and down and down. An amazing spot. As we approached the site I could just sense the American natives who had come here many years ago. Believe it or not, there were 6 orange trees there around that hole. I ate one. They were kinda bitter. That hole we fished in was approximately 40 feet deep.
Matt caught the first butterbelly and I caught the next one (the larger of the two, of course). What a spot. What an adventure. All in all, we saw eagles and ospreys and the manatees and caught some great eating fish Oh yes...don't forget we got to stare out at the islands while we were hung up on a sandbar waiting to get back underway.
You know, I hadn't been out in a boat for 6 months. I had a motorcycle wreck and twisted and broke my leg up pretty good, so I've just been hanging out at the trailer in Otter Creek since mid-September. I got home last night and felt like I had been reborn. Complete with sunburn. Ain't it great? Next week I'm taking a friend snorkeling with the manatees down in Kings Bay in Crystal River. I'll tell y'all about it. Capt. Dan E-mail me......shanadan50@hotmail.com | 
