Canals worth saving

Anglers make case that thriving bass fishery should alter 'Glades restoration.

Sandy Martin grew up fishing for bass on the St. Johns River, and she used to live within casting distance of Lake Okeechobee. So when Martin says that the canals in the Everglades are one of the best bass fisheries in the state, she knows what she's talking about. "People don't realize what kind of fishery is down here until they fish it," Martin said.

Martin, of Homestead, has had the pleasure of taking some people with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fishing in the Everglades during the annual South Florida Anglers For Everglades Restoration Save Our Canals tournament. SAFER has been working with the Corps to keep the canals open when the agency gets around to restoring the Everglades.

The tournament was an eye-opener for Martin's anglers, who had no idea how good fishing can be in the canals and who caught plenty of bass. Thanks to those outings and SAFER's prodding, the Corps is considering alternatives to simply filling in the canals by pushing in the levees that they built when the canals were created.

For example, SAFER has asked the Corps to evaluate different models for restoring water flow in the Everglades. The Corps is going to try three different models in the L-67C Canal, which is just east of the popular L-67A Canal, to see which works best. One model will knock down part of the levee, one will partially fill part of the canal and one will totally fill part of the canal.

The Corps is also looking at providing access to the north end of the L-67C from Mack's Fish Camp. Currently, the only boat ramps for the L-67C are at Tamiami Trail.

"There's no reason why the South Florida Water Management District and the Corps can't come together and do something to satisfy everybody," Martin said. "The Corps will get their water flow and the recreational fishermen will get their fishing.

"These canals are very important to recreational fishing and to the Everglades. Right now, going through this drought, what would happen without these canals? This is my opinion, but the Everglades would be fried."

Although she grew up in Daytona Beach, Martin wasn't much for saltwater fishing, spending most of her time fishing for bass with her family on the St. Johns. Although she now lives close to Everglades National Park and Florida Bay, she prefers to fish for bass and in bass tournaments in South Florida canals such as the C-111, or Aerojet Canal, and the L-67C, which she calls the Little L.

Martin started fishing competitively when she moved to Homestead in 1979. The following year she joined the Homestead AmBASSadors fishing club, which was affiliated with the Homestead Air Force Base.

For five years she worked for a bank in Okeechobee and lived at Buckhead Ridge, which is on the lake, where she fished local tournaments. Upon her return, she got a job with the City of Homestead and married her husband, Larry, a fellow AmBASSador.

They each have a bass boat, so they don't usually fish club tournaments together. Larry takes great pride in pointing out that Sandy has been the club's angler of the year three times -- in 2002, 2004 and 2005. I saw just how good she is, and how good the bass fishing is in the Everglades, when Martin took me out during the SAFER tournament two weeks ago.

We fished in the L-67A Canal, which runs from Everglades Holiday Park to Tamiami Trail. We started at the weir, which is the remnant of a plug that the Corps built in the canal about 15 years ago and then removed when it didn't work as planned.

Martin's plan was to bump a deep-diving crankbait along the bottom of the canal, but she started off swimming a plastic frog lure through the vegetation lining the canal. The frog produced some bites, but nothing big. While Martin fished from the front of her Gambler bass boat, I fished a wacky-rigged Gambler Ace behind the boat and managed to catch a couple of small keepers, along with some truly tiny bass and a hefty oscar.

After a while, Martin switched to her crankbait, which had produced numerous 3-pounders on a scouting trip a few days earlier. "When the canals are down, the fish hold deeper," she said. "The water temperature gets so hot, too, and you've got that thermocline down there, so the fish are going to stay in that comfortable water."

Unfortunately, the bass were down there with a bunch of bowfin, more commonly known as mudfish. Several times Martin would get a hit, hope that it was a big bass and then bring up a monstrous mudfish. After catching only one bass on the crankbait, Martin switched to one of her favorite baits, a topwater lure called a Pop-R. She cast it to the edge of the vegetation and retrieved it with a steady rhythm, popping it twice so it splashed the water, letting it rest a moment, popping it twice and letting it rest. Almost immediately, she caught a 21/2-pounder, our biggest bass of the day.

"Over the years, it's been very productive for me and I have a lot of confidence in it," Martin said of the Pop-R, which produced the bulk of our stringer. "And having confidence in a lure is very important. You catch more fish. My Pop-R has done well for me in many, many tournaments. When fishing gets tough, it's what I use."

Steve Waters can be reached at swaters@sun-sentinel.com or at 954-356-4648.