About the Captain

Captain Pat Burns has spent 56 of his 58 years in Lee County, Florida. A fifth Generation Native of Southwest Florida. Some of his earliest fishing experiences were the families all night trips snook fishing at Big Carlos and Big Hickory passes. He laughs abut liking to fish enough that he would beg to go when he was young enough that training pants were how they dressed him. There were no mosquito control planes in those days and it would take three days for the smell of the 6/12 mosquito repellent to wear off and the bumps to go down.

"If you were within a mile of the mangroves, you could swing a pint jar back then and catch a quart of mosquitoes. When I was 13-14 years old I wrangled my way on the weekends on to the dredge boat that was digging shell at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River. I had to sleep under the table in the galley but I got to spend time with grown men that were raping the environment but did not know it. We dredged the channel into Shell Creek, sold the shell to the city of Fort Myers for street base material and made some of the deep holes that the fish fall into today to escape the hard freezes (some things we do wrong seem to work out right).

Pat says there are not many mosquitoes now, but the fish are still here. "As a child I wandered the river in an old 27' dugout canoe with a 14hp Evenrude motor and it wasn't unusual to find a butchered manatee carcass. I think hard times and poor families had alot to do with that. Times are better now and the manatee population is healthy. Probably due to Florida Power and Lights warm water at the plant during the winter months." He loves to pole or use the trolling motor to ease into a group and watch/reminisce about our heritage. "Somehow we have both survived."

Captain Pat says he has fed several wives and lots of children fish and damned if he did not wish them wives hadn't been so full of omega 3, maybe he would be more comfortable on dry ground. It is hard to have a bad day on the water in this area because you look around and instead of seeing high-rises you get to visit with the manatee, dolphin, watch the osprey and the eagles, great blue herons and during the winter months the White Pelicans from up North, argue with the lazy pelicans who eat out of the live well and most important: fish. We still have some of the most beautiful water with the best all-around inshore backcountry fishing in the State.

" I commercial fished off and on for 20 years with bandit boats and about every kind of net boat and gear you can name, but could never get the sport of fishing out of my blood. Guiding suits me. I get more enjoyment from watching someone else catch fish then catching them myself."