I am delighted that the recent article I co-authored with my fishing buddy Steve Keeble about exploring the trout fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains area of North Carolina was featured in the January-February 2026 issue of American Fly Fishing. Come join us! Click on the link below to download a copy of the article.
Also take a look at American Fly Fishing’s home page. It’s a great magazine that I read cover-to-cover every issue!
March 2026
Through the hard work over the years of many, like executive directors James Van Hemert and Susan Daggett, it has become a leading national research and conference institute on land use and sustainable development law. 500 people were in attendance this year.
March 2026
This past year was an interesting and rewarding one, albeit challenging. Despite my paucity of new posts in 2025, I am grateful to my subscribers and readers that stuck with me. The number of my views and visitors to hooknfly.com remained at the record levels established in 2024. Again, the most popular article was Best Fishing Books Of All Time with thousands of reads. If you Google “best fishing books” my post on the subject will pop up at or near the top after the sponsored sites and the ubiquitous AI summary overview, even before it sometimes! That’s a real surprise in this era of videos, internet, and short attention spans. People do still read, especially anglers and nature aficionados! And comments from readers like “What fun to go on a walk with you. I love all the lovely details that you see and identify for us” make it all worthwhile.
The good news is more publications are on the way. My recent article coauthored with fishing buddy from Georgia Steve Keeble on trout fishing the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest North Carolina was just published in the January-February issue of American Fly Fishing. Check back here after April 1st for a link to download the piece.
Mr. Keeble At Work
The Author Scores With Mop FlyAnother about my quest to find rare Rio Grande Cutthroats on Jim Creek in the Colorado backcountry, a remarkable stream recovery story, will be out soon. I am also working on a feature article for the late summer issue of Florida Sportsman on fishing and exploring the Big Cypress National Preserve in southwest Florida. The huge preserve covering over 700,000 acres is adjacent to Everglades National Park and managed by the National Park Service. It is home to hungry snook, high-jumping tarpon, and a bevy of beautiful birds, not to mention the infamous Alligator Alcatraz!
January started off fine with a relaxing hike in a secluded, lightly visited part of the Collier-Seminole State Park, just west of Everglades City. It’s a true wilderness on the edge of the Everglades that is a great way to get to know a range of Glades environments from prairie to slash pine forests that transition into bald cypress strands and mangroves. There’s a chance to see deer, bear, and even Florida Panthers but also a host of other interesting smaller critters like shrews and tree snails as well as beautiful birds such as large pileated woodpeckers. (See https://hooknfly.com/2025/04/23/collier-seminoles-flatwoods-trail-a-hidden-gem-for-families-with-kids-and-for-bicyclists/ )
But then I hit a rocky patch. Aside from competing with artificial intelligence ( AI) and swimming upstream against the video tide, my biggest challenge started when I came down with a serious case of vertigo in early February. I always assumed vertigo was just a fancy word for motion sickness which has plagued me ever since I was a kid. No reading in the car or riding in the backseat for me. Not so! Vertigo is a whirling dervish, head-spinning trip that can knock you out of the ball game for extended periods. I struggled with it for several months, squeezing in a few good days fishing here and there in the Everglades without tumbling out of the boat. On one trip my granddaughter Aly caught a nice sea trout on the Turner River all on her own, outfishing her Daddy Matthew and me!
Fortunately in late March I found an ENT doctor who along with his team of audiologists cured me in short order after multiple tests finally identified the problem with pesky little crystals in my semi-circular canals that are so important to balance and stability. I was cured with a targeted physical head maneuvering treatment in Florida in late April, just in time to head to Colorado and chase some trout! So far so good!
I arrived back in Colorado with high hopes, my fly rod rigged and ready to go, only to miss a step on my cabin stairs in early June, take a tumble, and break five ribs! Fortunately, it was during runoff season in the mountains so had time to recover before the streams were fishable again. I was back on the water in early July and fooling some eager trout. But talk about intimations of immortality!
Solar Time…Here Comes The Sun
As I related in my 2024 yearly report, I was fortunate to play a major role in a ground-breaking study of how to deal with the significant impacts of large-scale solar facilities, so critical to meeting the soaring demand for clean electric energy. I took on an interesting assignment to assist Saguache County, Colorado, home of several of my favorite trout streams, in dealing with proposals it was grappling with to build huge industrial-scale solar energy facilities. Because the San Luis Valley is one of the sunniest locales in Colorado, it is a magnet for these facilities that can cover hundreds of acres with significant impacts on wildlife, agricultural areas, and scenic vistas. With generous support of the Gates Family Foundation out of Denver, I teamed with a bright, hard-working law professor, Jonathan Rosenbloom, to produce a detailed report recommending regulations to ensure the facilities are properly sited and operated to address potential adverse impacts while still accommodating these energy sources so essential to reducing carbon emissions and grappling with climate change.
We finished the study in December 2024, and I winged back to Colorado from Florida to present the final report to a SRO crowd in Saguache County including the three county commissioners, staff, and dozens of citizens. The report was well-received. I proceeded to hightail it back to Denver with a huge snowstorm nipping at my heels. Fortunately, got to do some sledding with my granddaughter Aly before returning to Florida. The report was then featured at the annual conference of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute at the University of Denver School of Law which I co-founded with my good friend and fishing buddy Professor Ed Ziegler.
In November of 2025 the county commissioners adopted new regulations that incorporated the main recommendations of the report which has become a model for rural jurisdictions across the USA facing a surge of large-scale solar proposals to satisfy the hunger for electricity by sources such as electric vehicles and increasingly controversial data centers linked to mushrooming artificial intelligence use.
On a sad note, Professor Ziegler, also known as Zig Zag Ziegler for his elusive running style as an all-American running back at Notre Dame, passed away suddenly on late October due to a serious lung infection. Fortunately, I got to see Ed and talk with him before he left us. I cherish those memories of our time on the water together.
The Scrapers
I was delighted during the summer of 2025 to see the numbers of views and visitors to my site start to skyrocket! One day over 2,000 people logged in to read my blog, focusing mostly on trout fishing articles. But when those astronomical numbers kept repeating for a week, I got a little suspicious, smelling a rat! So I did a little investigating and discovered that of those 2,000 visitors, over 1700 were from China and Singapore. Now there are a few trout streams in China, particularly in remote mountainous regions, but the numbers looked fishy….and not in a good way. With the help of a company called Wordfence, I Iearned that the clicks from China, Singapore, and several other Asian countries were likely scraping information and text from my blog illegally, probably for AI outfits.
One proof was that some of the text for the AI overview that comes up when you search on Google for “Best Fishing Books” is a direct copy of language lifted from my related blog articles!
After a payment of $150 for its services, Wordfence shut down 99% of the scrapers who continue to try to bust through the protective fence that is blocking them from copying information from my site. This past week alone Wordfence blocked 3,791 scrapers from Singapore, 582 from China, and 186 from India!
What is particularly annoying is that I don’t try to sell anything on my site nor has it been commercialized in any way. I have been fortunate in life and feel sharing my adventures and information with other anglers and outdoor enthusiasts is a way to say thank you and a good vehicle to build constituencies to protect our beloved natural resources like trout streams that are under siege now more than ever. Frustrating when these scoundrels try to take advantage of that!
The Sirens
According to Greek mythology, sirens were beautiful creatures with the wings of birds and the faces and upper bodies of alluring women that used their mesmerizing voices to lure sailors to their deaths with irresistible songs.
That’s sometime how I feel about the allure of remote, high country trout streams that keep me young. But they are getting harder to find. Luck was on my side in 2025 though, when I met lady guide and author Michele White at a local Trout Unlimited meeting and got an autographed copy of her interesting book Lesser Known Fly Fishing Venues in South Park (Colorado) published in 2020. I immediately spied a couple of remote creeks in the book that sounded fantastic.
The first turned out to be a bummer. While secluded as promised, its beautiful beaver ponds had filled in with silt, and the creek in between ponds was completely overgrown since the guide was written. Grrr. One tiny brook trout saved me from the dreaded skunk! But the next one, with a very inviting name that shall remain nameless for the time being, lived up to its billing.
With my local fishing buddy Tenkara Tom, we did some four-wheel drive reconnaissance in the fall and had a good outing surrounded by breathtaking scenery, whetting my appetite for more to come this summer. Tune in then. The other siren is a new state wildlife area in South Park featuring miles of Tarryall Creek, one of my favorites. I have written about fishing the upper Tarryall on the Cline Ranch State Wildlife Area where I caught some big brownies. (See article at: https://hooknfly.com/2021/07/30/get-on-the-beat-at-tarryall-creek-in-south-park-colorado/ ) An initial foray into the new refuge with my acrobatic photographer Jody Bol in September was encouraging. More to come soon.
The Divine, Hard-Working Ms. Bol!
That’s it for 2025. A promising 2026 is already underway in the Florida Everglades thanks to some very cooperative snook and tarpon. Stay tuned!!
March 2026
This past year was an interesting and rewarding one, albeit challenging. Despite my paucity of new posts in 2025, I am grateful to my subscribers and readers that stuck with me. The number of my views and visitors to hooknfly.com remained at the record levels established in 2024. Again, the most popular article was Best Fishing Books Of All Time with thousands of reads. If you Google “best fishing books” my post on the subject will pop up at or near the top after the sponsored sites and the ubiquitous AI summary overview, even before it sometimes! That’s a real surprise in this era of videos, internet, and short attention spans. People do still read, especially anglers and nature aficionados! And comments from readers like “What fun to go on a walk with you. I love all the lovely details that you see and identify for us” make it all worthwhile.
The good news is more publications are on the way. My recent article coauthored with fishing buddy from Georgia Steve Keeble on trout fishing the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest North Carolina was just published in the January-February issue of American Fly Fishing. Check back here after April 1st for a link to download the piece.
Mr. Keeble At Work The Author Scores With Mop FlyAnother about my quest to find rare Rio Grande Cutthroats on Jim Creek in the Colorado backcountry, a remarkable stream recovery story, will be out soon. I am also working on a feature article for the late summer issue of Florida Sportsman on fishing and exploring the Big Cypress National Preserve in southwest Florida. The huge preserve covering over 700,000 acres is adjacent to Everglades National Park and managed by the National Park Service. It is home to hungry snook, high-jumping tarpon, and a bevy of beautiful birds, not to mention the infamous Alligator Alcatraz!
January started off fine with a relaxing hike in a secluded, lightly visited part of the Collier-Seminole State Park, just west of Everglades City. It’s a true wilderness on the edge of the Everglades that is a great way to get to know a range of Glades environments from prairie to slash pine forests that transition into bald cypress strands and mangroves. There’s a chance to see deer, bear, and even Florida Panthers but also a host of other interesting smaller critters like shrews and tree snails as well as beautiful birds such as large pileated woodpeckers. (See https://hooknfly.com/2025/04/23/collier-seminoles-flatwoods-trail-a-hidden-gem-for-families-with-kids-and-for-bicyclists/ )
But then I hit a rocky patch. Aside from competing with artificial intelligence ( AI) and swimming upstream against the video tide, my biggest challenge started when I came down with a serious case of vertigo in early February. I always assumed vertigo was just a fancy word for motion sickness which has plagued me ever since I was a kid. No reading in the car or riding in the backseat for me. Not so! Vertigo is a whirling dervish, head-spinning trip that can knock you out of the ball game for extended periods. I struggled with it for several months, squeezing in a few good days fishing here and there in the Everglades without tumbling out of the boat. On one trip my granddaughter Aly caught a nice sea trout on the Turner River all on her own, outfishing her Daddy Matthew and me!
Fortunately in late March I found an ENT doctor who along with his team of audiologists cured me in short order after multiple tests finally identified the problem with pesky little crystals in my semi-circular canals that are so important to balance and stability. I was cured with a targeted physical head maneuvering treatment in Florida in late April, just in time to head to Colorado and chase some trout! So far so good!
I arrived back in Colorado with high hopes, my fly rod rigged and ready to go, only to miss a step on my cabin stairs in early June, take a tumble, and break five ribs! Fortunately, it was during runoff season in the mountains so had time to recover before the streams were fishable again. I was back on the water in early July and fooling some eager trout. But talk about intimations of immortality!
Solar Time…Here Comes The Sun
As I related in my 2024 yearly report, I was fortunate to play a major role in a ground-breaking study of how to deal with the significant impacts of large-scale solar facilities, so critical to meeting the soaring demand for clean electric energy. I took on an interesting assignment to assist Saguache County, Colorado, home of several of my favorite trout streams, in dealing with proposals it was grappling with to build huge industrial-scale solar energy facilities. Because the San Luis Valley is one of the sunniest locales in Colorado, it is a magnet for these facilities that can cover hundreds of acres with significant impacts on wildlife, agricultural areas, and scenic vistas. With generous support of the Gates Family Foundation out of Denver, I teamed with a bright, hard-working law professor, Jonathan Rosenbloom, to produce a detailed report recommending regulations to ensure the facilities are properly sited and operated to address potential adverse impacts while still accommodating these energy sources so essential to reducing carbon emissions and grappling with climate change.
We finished the study in December 2024, and I winged back to Colorado from Florida to present the final report to a SRO crowd in Saguache County including the three county commissioners, staff, and dozens of citizens. The report was well-received. I proceeded to hightail it back to Denver with a huge snowstorm nipping at my heels. Fortunately, got to do some sledding with my granddaughter Aly before returning to Florida. The report was then featured at the annual conference of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute at the University of Denver School of Law which I co-founded with my good friend and fishing buddy Professor Ed Ziegler.
In November of 2025 the county commissioners adopted new regulations that incorporated the main recommendations of the report which has become a model for rural jurisdictions across the USA facing a surge of large-scale solar proposals to satisfy the hunger for electricity by sources such as electric vehicles and increasingly controversial data centers linked to mushrooming artificial intelligence use.
On a sad note, Professor Ziegler, also known as Zig Zag Ziegler for his elusive running style as an all-American running back at Notre Dame, passed away suddenly on late October due to a serious lung infection. Fortunately, I got to see Ed and talk with him before he left us. I cherish those memories of our time on the water together.
The Scrapers
I was delighted during the summer of 2025 to see the numbers of views and visitors to my site start to skyrocket! One day over 2,000 people logged in to read my blog, focusing mostly on trout fishing articles. But when those astronomical numbers kept repeating for a week, I got a little suspicious, smelling a rat! So I did a little investigating and discovered that of those 2,000 visitors, over 1700 were from China and Singapore. Now there are a few trout streams in China, particularly in remote mountainous regions, but the numbers looked fishy….and not in a good way. With the help of a company called Wordfence, I Iearned that the clicks from China, Singapore, and several other Asian countries were likely scraping information and text from my blog illegally, probably for AI outfits.
One proof was that some of the text for the AI overview that comes up when you search on Google for “Best Fishing Books” is a direct copy of language lifted from my related blog articles!
After a payment of $150 for its services, Wordfence shut down 99% of the scrapers who continue to try to bust through the protective fence that is blocking them from copying information from my site. This past week alone Wordfence blocked 3,791 scrapers from Singapore, 582 from China, and 186 from India!
What is particularly annoying is that I don’t try to sell anything on my site nor has it been commercialized in any way. I have been fortunate in life and feel sharing my adventures and information with other anglers and outdoor enthusiasts is a way to say thank you and a good vehicle to build constituencies to protect our beloved natural resources like trout streams that are under siege now more than ever. Frustrating when these scoundrels try to take advantage of that!
The Sirens
According to Greek mythology, sirens were beautiful creatures with the wings of birds and the faces and upper bodies of alluring women that used their mesmerizing voices to lure sailors to their deaths with irresistible songs.
That’s sometime how I feel about the allure of remote, high country trout streams that keep me young. But they are getting harder to find. Luck was on my side in 2025 though, when I met lady guide and author Michele White at a local Trout Unlimited meeting and got an autographed copy of her interesting book Lesser Known Fly Fishing Venues in South Park (Colorado) published in 2020. I immediately spied a couple of remote creeks in the book that sounded fantastic.
The first turned out to be a bummer. While secluded as promised, its beautiful beaver ponds had filled in with silt, and the creek in between ponds was completely overgrown since the guide was written. Grrr. One tiny brook trout saved me from the dreaded skunk! But the next one, with a very inviting name that shall remain nameless for the time being, lived up to its billing.
With my local fishing buddy Tenkara Tom, we did some four-wheel drive reconnaissance in the fall and had a good outing surrounded by breathtaking scenery, whetting my appetite for more to come this summer. Tune in then. The other siren is a new state wildlife area in South Park featuring miles of Tarryall Creek, one of my favorites. I have written about fishing the upper Tarryall on the Cline Ranch State Wildlife Area where I caught some big brownies. (See article at: https://hooknfly.com/2021/07/30/get-on-the-beat-at-tarryall-creek-in-south-park-colorado/ ) An initial foray into the new refuge with my acrobatic photographer Jody Bol in September was encouraging. More to come soon.
The Divine, Hard-Working Ms. Bol!
That’s it for 2025. A promising 2026 is already underway in the Florida Everglades thanks to some very cooperative snook and tarpon. Stay tuned!!
January-February 2025
For my earlier articles on fishing Collier-Seminole State Park, see:
https://hooknfly.com/2023/04/12/the-bountiful-blackwater-river-collier-seminole-state-park/ and https://hooknfly.com/2019/04/26/collier-seminole-state-park-surprise-serendipitous-snook/
Overview
The Flatwoods Trail in Collier-Seminole State Park near Naples in southwest Florida is an excellent hike for families with kids as well as a good easy trip for bicyclists. It utilizes a wide, mowed park service road for 3/4ths of its 2.5-mile length and a short well-marked and maintained segment of the Florida Trail for the rest that is easy to navigate by foot.
Despite its proximity to urban conglomeration of Naples, the trail is lightly used because visitors must register at the park headquarters and obtain a combination to the gated trailhead. It is a great trip after a rain or early in the winter dry season when many other trails in the area are soaked, requiring wading and slip sliding through the muck. And even if the service road has some puddles after a rain, they are easy to skirt without getting wet. As a bonus, just a few miles from the city it offers quiet, true wilderness on the edge of the Everglades that is a great way to get to know a range of Glades environments from prairie to slash pine forests that transition into bald cypress strands and mangroves. There’s a chance to see deer, bear, and even Florida Panthers but also a host of other interesting smaller critters like shrews and tree snails as well as beautiful birds such as large pileated woodpeckers.
There are also splendid wildflowers starting to pop out in early spring that attract colorful, exotic looking butterflies. On top of all that, there’s a small pond that offers anglers a chance to fish for bass and colorful cichlids.
Getting There And Getting Started
The trail can be accessed from either east or west along the well-maintained US Highway 41, the Tamiami Trail. The gated entry to the trail is located just east of the main gate to Collier-Seminole State Park and about 30 minutes from downtown Naples. From Everglades City to the east, the drive is about 23 miles and 30 minutes.
Because the trailhead is gated—which is one reason the trail is only lightly used—visitors must first check-in at the ranger shed just inside the well-marked entrance to the state park off US 41. There visitors pay a park entrance fee or show a state parks pass and will receive the combination to the trailhead gate lock. Then it’s on to the Flatwoods trailhead (also known as the Adventure Trail) which is located at a turnout to the north off of US 41 about ¾ mile east of the main park entrance.
The Hike
Once inside the gate off US 41, which should be closed and relocked after passing through, it is a short drive to the trailhead where there is ample parking at the service road gate along the small scenic pond. I recommend hiking along the park service road from here although there is an option to use a narrower trail as depicted on the trailhead sign. That path will intersect with the service road to the north in about ¼ mile.
This first segment is through a slash pine forest that provides good habit for deer, bear, and panthers.
Slash pine are a native evergreen conifer with bark that looks like it has been slashed with an ax. But my local friends tell me the word “slash” also means “swamp” in the south, hence pine trees that can grow and thrive in wet conditions. They grow rapidly and live for about 200 years. Slash pine forests tend to have an open canopy that allows light to penetrate to the forest floor which encourages growth of vegetation for denizens of the forest to dine upon and seek shelter. Pine flatwoods typically grow in low, flat land with sandy soils.
You can see scorched trees here and there, this being a fire-dependent ecosystem where regular burning, both natural and prescribed, is required to maintain an open plant community.
I find the key to really enjoying this environment is to not only look up and into the trees to spot birds and large wildlife but also to keep an eye focused on the ground close by looking for little things—flowers, tree snail shells, interesting small critters like shrews and lizards. Kids are often better at that than adults. Right on cue, I soon I see some lovely wildflowers like the bright yellow tickseeds and dainty blue-eyed grass that the colorful and intricately marked Buckeye and White Peacock butterflies can’t resist.
In about 15 minutes and a half mile in, you will come to a fork in the road—stay right and continue hiking through the slash pine woods.
Soon you will start to see some bald cypress to the east, marking the transition to a wetter environment. They are one of the few conifers that drop their needles every fall and put out new ones in the spring. During the rainy summer season, the cypress trees to the east will be standing in ankle-deep water and maybe more, one of the few trees that can grow and actually thrive in the wet environment. Hiking is a real adventure then!
Continue on for another 15 minutes and quarter mile–about a mile from the trailhead—where the suggested route veers left off the service road and continues on to the northwest on a well-marked and maintained stretch of the Florida Trail.
While it is a tad more challenging for kids, it’s still an easy hike and provides a great opportunity to ramble through a prairie environment that is a surprise to many who associate the Everglades with swamps, tall saw grass, and alligators.
Here you will see winsome wildflowers and birds like the small white-eyed vireo and the raucous gray catbird. Later in the spring the flashy Eastern Lubber Grasshopper makes its appearance.
Before starting up the Florida Trail, you can take a little side trip as I did and continue up the service road where it dead ends at the park boundary in another quarter of a mile. It’s always surprising to see what you find on these peregrinations. This time I came across a little shrew that had apparently breathed its last not long ago and a blue crab claw. I puzzled over the fate of that little critter that is still soft to the touch or how that claw got way back here away from any water.
(As an aside, I caution against taking the turnoff to the Florida Trail that heads southeast to the right and circles back to the trailhead. This section will be much wetter most of the year, and the time I hiked it in February of 2025 a portion had been bisected and obliterated in part by a vehicle access road for fire fighters. I ended up losing the trail and wandering into a marshy area further south. If you choose to take this route, be sure to check with the state park rangers about its condition.)
The Florida Trail section of the hike that I recommend weaves in and out of the prairie and the slash pine woods for about a third of a mile. I enjoy the wildflowers and changing vegetation like the saw palmetto stand fringed by delicate looking yellow flowers poking through the prairie grass then into a mixed slash pine/bald cypress stand.
Soon the trail emerges into an opening and where it intersects with the west fork of the park service road that will take me back to the trailhead.
I stop to take a drink and get my bearings, then turn left to the southeast off the Florida Trail. Now the fun begins. Around the bend is a small puddle of water on the road ahead of me, and I see a large bird swoop down for a drink. First I think vulture, but then see a patch of red its head—what a surprise, a pileated woodpecker on the ground, very unusual. I creep up slowly for a photo, but of course the big shy bird—the biggest of the woodpecker clan in North America that measures up to twenty inches with a wingspan of 30 inches– flees to a tree back in the woods.
There he hides while chastising me with his loud staccato call. I sneak behind a nearby stand of saw palmetto, and soon the curious bird peers around the tree for a look. I manage to get a good telephoto profile shot before he spots me and flies off.
I am still chuckling at his antics as I continue down the road where I see another big bird ahead. This one really is a vulture, and he is feasting on something. I snap a few long-distance photos then move up to inspect. It looks like some animal has made a meal of a small wading bird, maybe a green heron or a cattle egret—or could even be a woodpecker—and the vulture is getting leftovers.
I see some racoon tracks, but the pesky coons aren’t likely big enough to take down a bird that size. Maybe a bear or a panther? The circle of life.
Next some big, odd-looking fungi catch my eye. One that resembles a mushroom a bit and has a striking geometric design. It is attached firmly to a stump. It’s called Polyporaceae and is reportedly poisonous. Another nearby with the moniker mouthful of Sparassidaceae is also known as cauliflower fungus! Aptly named!
Continuing on the short jaunt back to the fork in the road, I spy spring flowers starting to emerge. Dainty Ontario lobelia, salt marsh aster, puffy narrowleaf silkgrass, and milkweed, a butterfly favorite.
From the fork on the short distance back south to the trailhead, I enjoy a gentle breeze beneath a warm sunny sky. I haven’t seen a sole on the trail except for the friendly squadron of park fire fighters in their pickups. It’s been delightful to be immersed in nature with all its surprises and savor the quiet of the wilderness so close to a sprawling urban area. Next time I will remember to bring my fishing rod!!
