Florida Sportsman – September 2019

FROM THE

EDITOR

F

or a brief period over the summer, I thought

about moving. To California. Don’t criticize

me. You know you’ve done it, too. It’s in our

blood, after all. That instinct that impels

us to follow the sun, find what’s over the horizon,

it’s there.

I wasn’t serious, of course. Just daydreaming

while on vacation.

San Francisco does feel mighty fine in the

summertime. The air is brisk. You can walk for miles

without breaking a sweat. You can also drive in

circles, for hours, without finding a parking space or

public restroom.

Yosemite National Park—it’s everything it’s made

out to be. “Kids, just look at all this,” I said, breathing

through my mouth, selfishly praying the radiator leak

was someone else’s tour bus. “The most scenic traffic

jam on Planet Earth.” And about those earthquakes:

They have them. End of story.

But what force of nature, what terrifying

calamity, could have caused a 4-hour delay in our

return flight?

Fog. Not a thunderstorm, not a snowstorm, just

boring old fog, a lazy, disreputable cloud. Could I

lend the pilot my airhorn and handheld GPS?

Stepping out of the terminal in Orlando at 2 a.m.,

I felt Florida against my face, a sudden kiss of hot,

humid air. It felt so good to be home.

Renewed, I returned to my desk at the fishing

and all-around outdoors magazine which has been

extolling Florida’s virtues, and decrying her abusers,

for 50 years now.

Florida Sportsman was first published in

September of 1969, led by Karl Wickstrom, a young

father, like me, bitten by the fishing bug. Karl had

been an award-winning reporter at the Miami

Herald, and he would recruit a Herald

colleague, Vic Dunaway, to help edit his

fledging magazine.

Karl and Vic, mentors of mine, are no

longer with us, but traces of their legacies reside

in the pages of this magazine, as in our television

shows, websites, Expos and other products. Same

can be said for the contributions of many other

talented scribes, photographers, art directors,

advertising salesmen and other team members (go

to our website for a tribute to the FS generations,

past and present, http://www.floridasportsman.com).

By extension, the lives of these men and women

have helped shape the very culture and environ-

ment of Florida.

Count yourself, reader, among this Florida

Sportsman family.

That’s right, you: the one eyeing tropical

forecasts and maybe feeling a little uneasy about

life in Florida. The one who sent the picture of your

son with the big snook. The one who asked about

flounder fishing at the Expo in Fort Myers. The one

who came with the protest sign to the Army Corps

meeting. You’re a part of this.

“What’s to come of our waters? Our shores?” you

may be asking. “Is it time to move?”

I’ve heard about the “halfbacks”—folks from

the northeast who come to Florida and eventually

make a U-turn for Georgia or South Carolina. What

to call one who moves to California? “Broke,”

maybe?

Florida is a crazy place, no doubt about it. The

coasts are crowded. We’ve got critters that bite and

summers that seem to never end.

But it’s also a place where fish swim in every

trickle, and folks who aren’t dot-com bazillionaires

can buy a quarter-acre and store a trailer boat.

If earthquakes and seven-dollar coffees are your

thing, Go West, Young Man.

But if you live for the sound of a yard-long snook

smashing a topwater plug, and don’t mind the

background buzz of the skeeters, well then... as the

sign hanging on my office door reads:

No Place Like Home

Jeff Weakley

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Karl, Vic and

other FS team

members

helped shape

th e very

culture and

environment

of Florida.

Count yourself,

reader, among

this family.

http://www.FLORIDASPORTSMAN.com SEPTEMBER 2019 9