NAPLES, FLORIDA: Somewhere east of Highway 41 is a fishing hole claimed to be known only by a local fisherman, Harold Lee Mittens. The spot has been kept secret for nearly a decade until this week when Harold agreed to show the Hook Times news team where it was.
It was a brisk 65 degrees on this winter night as our headlights trailed Harold’s 1986 Ford Ranger down a small street just a few miles from Baker Park. We reached a dead end that had a cleared out dirt lot. We proceeded to hop the curb and park. Harold waited for us as we unloaded from the news van and yelled “y’all better not tell no one where this is.”
We were committed to keeping the specific location secret. Though after visiting it there’s not a chance in hell we’d tell anyone we cared about anyway. The spot required a hunched over walk through brush and low hanging trees with no trail. Once you reached “the spot” it had about a 3 foot wide clearing into a canal that you could drop a dead bait into if you tried really fucking hard.
There were old beer cans and pieces of trash littered every where. The smell was rancid, a blend of swampy stagnant water and human feces. As I gasped for air while trying to prevent myself from throwing up, Harold begin to holler, “FISH ON!”
After an animated battle with a 3lb sail cat we parted with our new friend. On our way out of the hell hole our camera man was bit by a spider.
