There was a simpler day when gadgets and electronics did not help. Those were the days when a fisherman's sense and knowledge were the best tools at hand to find fish. The old timers knew where the fish would be, on what tide, and for how long they would feed. The really good ones would move with the fish as they made their twice a day tidal feeding migration.
I remember watching with awe the commercial speckled trout fishermen that used to inhabit Florida Bay during the summer. They came either alone or in pairs in old commercial boats with a couple of large ice chests, and a 16 foot shallow draft skiff or two in tow, ready to spend up to a week on the water. They returned only when they either ran out of ice or a place to put fish. They were a very special breed of fisherman.
When we fished Florida Bay it was not at all unusual for one of them to putter or row over to us to barter for cigarettes: as many live pinfish, the bait of choice for trout, as we could handle for a pack of cigarettes. If you happened to have a six-pack of beer, it got you a cooler full of trout to boot!
Life was not easy for these commercial fishermen, but watching them at their art was something to behold. They used a cane pole about as long as their boat with a heavy line ¾ the length of the pole. A ½ ounce slip sinker kept down a hook tied to a 2-foot leader and swivel. About 2 feet above that was the all important "popping" cork, a fixture familiar to most trout fishermen.
The idea was to swing the live pinfish bait out the side of the boat as they drifted across the grass flats in anywhere from three to eight feet of water. The popping cork was used to attract the trout to the bait. Trout will move to any commotion on the water and investigate, in hopes of an easy meal. That easy meal was the pinfish underneath the popping cork.
Occasionally, pinfish got scarce, or the fishermen just plain ran out. When that happened, off came the hook and float arrangement and on came the wooden Dalton Special. Now there was a lure! Tying on usually a yellow and white one with some type of red trim, they used that pole and lure to catch fish. In place of the popping cork noise they used the end of their cane poles, "splattering" them on top of the water several times. They followed the splatter with two or three quick, noisy jerks on the Dalton. They said they were "calling the fish" with all that racket. That combination never failed to produce, and they became known, at least in my world of fishermen, as splatter pole fishermen.
The splatter polers I used to watch have long since gone, being replaced by commercial netters, and in Florida Bay, removed altogether since commercial fishing has been banned in most of the Bay. Gone too, are the days of coolers of fish being brought to the dock. The limit on trout is 5 per day now.
But the memory lives on of how these gruff, salty fishermen made the rest of us look like the amateurs we are at catching trout. To this day, however, if you are fishing for trout with me, don't be shocked when I put my rod tip in the water about a foot deep and shake it like crazy. I'm only calling the fish! And, oh by the way, I do have a number of Dalton Specials in my box - yellow and white, with red trim.
