Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News.
BY JACK SHORT Scientists from the Florida Institute of Technology hope everyone fishing the pass next week won’t be alarmed by the presence of an eight foot balloon floating 150 feet in the air, tethered to the back of a research vessel. They’re working out a concept for tracking tarpon schools, perhaps as far as […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News.
BY JACK SHORT A court ordered mediation has resolved 25 years of dispute between property owners on Three Sisters Island and in the Boca Grande Isles. The agreement provides the right to build road access to Three Sisters Island through lot 99 of Boca Grande Isles, where the two islands are connected, in return for […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News.
BY ADAM MARTON, THE FIELDWORKERS CLUB This August a small group of anglers from all over the USA will be traveling to the Caribbean to participate in the Belize Tarpon Tagging Expedition, a partnership between anglers and scientists with the University of Miami. This expedition is a unique opportunity for folks to pitch in and […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News.
One of Boca Grande’s charter captains, Capt. Jimmy Robertson, is in need of some good energy and prayers from the community as he faces stage 4 liver cancer and issues from a recent fall. Jimmy was diagnosed with Stage 4 Liver cancer that has metastasized to his spine. He has lots of treatments coming up, […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News.
Another dead sea turtle has been found on a local beach, this time at the very northern tip of the island. According to one sea turtle patroller, Marilyn Googins, she found it at the “northern end of zone 1 on Friday, May 15.” “There is a walkway easement off Sunset Pines Circle and it was […]
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in News.
BY MARCY SHORTUSE When you feed a kid a fish, they will eat for a day … or push it around on their plate, at least. When you teach a kid to fish, though, well … sometimes you’ll create a monster. That is what Capt. Sandy Melvin is hoping for after this year’s Gasparilla Island […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News, Profiles.
BY JACK SHORT To anyone who happened upon a scene in the kitchen of the Palmetto Inn recently, two men pouring over maps with their wives and siblings, sandwiches and soup cooking on the other side of the counter, it might have seemed like they were reminiscing over a European vacation taken years before. But […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in Letters to the Editor.
To the Editor: It’s that time of year again. The time when the lords and ladies assemble their baggage trains and go back to whatever magical kingdom they’re trying to make Boca Grande into. When the island sheds it’s Downton Abby patina and morphs back into Mayberry. The time of plentiful parking. The time when […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News.
BY MARCY SHORTUSE Sea turtle season has just begun and while nest numbers are still low, island patrollers have already found one turtle dead on local beaches. According to Maureen McConnell, the head of the island’s sea turtle patrollers, she received a call of a “stranded” juvenile loggerhead turtle at the north end of the […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News.
BY MARCY SHORTUSE It was great fishing weather on the evening of Saturday, May 9 as the 25th Ladies Day Tarpon Tournament was held in Boca Grande Pass. It had been 25 years since the original tournament was held, then called “Mothers and Others.” There were two boatloads of Italianos out on the water, Spook […]