florida

Ava on a boat
Profiles

Florida Outdoorswoman: Ava Fitzgerald

Ava Fitzgerald grew up just ten minutes from the beach in South Florida, where the rhythms of nature were part of everyday life. From a young age, she was immersed in Florida’s rich ecosystems. “I’ve probably watched turtles hatch a hundred times,” she laughs. “We’d go to the beach at sunset, looking for tiny little tracks leading back to the nest, and then suddenly, it was like a zombie apocalypse. Dozens of tiny baby turtles crawling out of the sand.”

Read more

3 Min
2025_Spring_Florida_JKolsch_Day3_FlipPallot_0019 1
Profiles

Casting in The Everglades with Flip Pallot

He calls it “the report card.” It’s the shape of the flyline as it comes over your shoulder on the forward cast, and unrolls out there in the distance, for all the world to see.
“The flyline will tell you all you need to know about your cast,” Flip Pallot instructs. Whether or not you have moved the tip of the flyrod in a straight line. Whether or not you stopped your backcast abruptly enough. Whether or not you applied acceleration at the right time or the wrong time. “Mistakes you make on this end of the rod,” Pallot says, patting the fly reel, “are magnified on the other end of the rod.” Meaning the line, and the fly, and where these two dozen Flip Pallot acolytes hope it lands.

Read more

3 Min
donna and her truck
Profiles

Python Bounty Hunter: Donna Kalil

The snakes that she’s hunting are the result of a good idea gone wrong. In the 1970s, the first Burmese pythons were imported from overseas as pets. They were a hit, and their numbers grew due to breeding programs and increased imports (importation has been banned since 2012). Released into the wild by their owners, they discovered an Eden in the Florida Everglades region, a place filled with food where they thrived. An apex predator, their only competition is large American crocodiles, alligators, and Florida panthers, and even those creatures can succumb to the pythons; nothing seems to stop them. The only other thing that can kill them in the wild is an extended hard freeze, which rarely happens this far south. They quickly took to the waterways and started to feed, and feed, and feed.

Read more

5 Min
Airboat History_1200x628_V2
Field Notes

Airboats: Remote Access Watercraft

Airboats—known also colloquially as swamp boats or bayou boats—are a relatively straightforward design for a watercraft, yet have been employed for a wide variety of transportation uses on rivers, marshlands, and other shallow water areas worldwide. Said design is based on a flat-bottom hull, most commonly made of wood, aluminum, or fiberglass, and propelled by a propeller mounted on the stern of the vessel. Such a configuration avoids the need to have a submerged propeller on an outboard engine.

Read more

3 Min