High Noon Hunts

UPDATE / SEPT 2024: I started this website years ago in 2011 to chronicle what ended up to be a most diverse 2011 fall hunting and fishing trip. It was a trip that had been planned for at least a couple of years and that I had been gearing up for and working on in earnest for a good part of 2011.

It was a great trip. Little did I know my life would begin a weird and challenging new odyssey upon returning to my home and business in Florida a few weeks later. The great relaxation gained from a few weeks of open air in nature, was followed with a miserable years-long struggle that created great challenges to complete the original business plan into which I had poured my entire career.

That said, I’m rewriting this post to eliminate the parts that represented very bad memories, due to some of the biggest mistakes of my life – the kind of mistakes difficult if not impossible to ever recover from completely. The kind of errors that teach a trusting guy the hard way about the importance of true love and trust in others, and how bad things can go when the wrong people are chosen to join in one’s life.

But the hunting/fishing trip described in the rest of the post below, and the other couple of posts before it, was one of the best outings of my life with some of the best friends a guy could ask for. It came at a time I had been mostly focused on work for years trying to establish a business that would provide a good living and hopeful future – I had almost forgotten the importance of taking time off to recharge. What followed became a long and personally painful lesson about life that took years for me to get through and to fully grasp their impact – years that can’t be relived.

So, on with the remaining thoughts from this great trip out west in 2011.

As most of my driving trips like this out of state began, my first night on the road (Oct 22, 2011)this time again is spent at Cousin Lee Cooper’s cabin in northwest Georgia. It’s one of my all time favorite stopovers, located on part of the old Cooper homeplace where my Dad was born and raised with a dozen or so siblings way back in the 19-teens. Cousin Lee’s Dad, Ernest, was one of my Dad’s older brothers. Lee (in fishing photo) is a builder in that part of Northwest Georgia, and a good one. He built his cabin from trees cut from the property and milled into the lumber specifically for the cabin that now gives this part of the foot of Lookout Mountain its character. Even the shed behind the cabin has character fitting for this wonderful mountain hideaway. Lee also dammed up a small spring fed creek to create part of the driveway and a picturesque pond in front of the cabin.

But before heading to the cabin on this trip, the very first stop of my trip is within a couple hours of home, to pick up a few pieces of needed equipment and cooking gear at my fishing cabin on the Gulf of Mexico. It is located at Cedar Isle near Keaton Beach, Florida and is where the photo of Lee above was taken a while back during one of our flats fishing outings. For you folks not familiar with Florida, that’s in the heart of Florida’s “Big Bend” coastal region, right up in the pocket where the Gulf Coast turns west along the Florida coastline. Each distinctive area of Florida’s coastline has its own romantic name, I think they are dreamed up to help promote each area. Many have heard of the Gold Coast of southeast Florida, or the Sun Coast along the state’s central west coast. Other areas of Florida’s coastline have been given names like the Treasure Coast, the Space Coast, the Emerald Coast, and others. This particular area of what locals have always known as the Big Bend is also becoming known now as the Nature Coast, at least for those who don’t find the “Big Bend” romantic enough for regional promotion.

This Nature Coast has not seen lots of development like most other areas of coastal Florida, largely due to the fact that it has no beaches to speak of. What it does have is lots of grass flats and swampy areas, and the miles of shallow water and seagrass in the region make for excellent flats fishing. Our main targets on these flats include speckled seatrout, redfish (red drum), an occassional flounder, bluefish, spanish mackerel, and several other good eating species that hookup now and then…But enough of that for now, I’m getting off track, and besides, now that this website is up and going I’m sure we’ll get into some of those fishing stories later on anyway…(To accomodate, notice the “…& Fishes” added to the website title above!)
Stay Tuned!