APtravelnews-April 5th,-Port Charlotte, FL.-Team Bob and Barb “On The Road Again” and Stopping to Smell The Roses”, this time the salt air! We met Captain Mike early morning in Cape Haze, on the bay! Mike took us out for some light tackle fishing and our first fish was a very fat and later on tasty sea trout. Capt. Mike knows his fish and area-he was brought up here and for the past 9-years has been chartering hundreds of days a year. He developed his business at a 4-Star Resort area on Palm Island accessible only by private boat and a neat ferry-barge “back and forth.” Mike is a pet-friendly charter guy and so Terry came along with us during our quest for tight lines and a couple of filet’s which we definitely enjoyed having it cooked up, at the nearby Waterfront Fishery Restaurant. We viewed manatees, bottle nosed dolphin and saw Ospreys carrying their mullet dinners to their nesting fledglings. We ran a bit offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and found a beautiful small Triple-Tale fish to admire and release. A fine sea trout grabbed a bait off the bottom and ate it deep. The 20-inch fish was too damaged to release so it became our luncheon fish filet’s that the Chef at the nearby Fishery Restaurant cooked up for us! Mike told us about how development as in other areas is strictly watched over and enforced to keep the beauty of what has been here for so long doesn’t get degraded as in other areas along Florida’s East and West Coasts. “See all those tree-lined areas, they are water-front, government protected parks. That really helps keep the creep of multi-story and other housing in abatement.” We did feel we were traveling through and by “old Florida” and it was a great feeling to know we were experiencing some of the best of Florida here. Mike in the off fishing season does sea side style furniture with fish and other bayfront style cutouts. Mike also fishes and sets up charters through his Palm Island Outfitters Guiding business, that runs out of Palm Island. A cable TV company run by Captain Mike called Charlotte Harbor Chronicles profiling the best of what the area has to offer. www.charlotteharborchronicles.com and go palmislandoutfitters.com for more information. You can call Captain Mike Slattery by phone at (941) 626-6946
