Len Myers lives in a mobile home in a trailer court. It is called a Fish Camp, because it is right on the St John’s River and it has boat slots available for every person living there. The campground is mostly a retirement community more active in the winter than in the summer. Len lost his wife earlier in the year and he decided to spend his summer “On the River”.

The campground is community, but it seems more like an extended family. Food and chit chat are everywhere. Fishing is the common thread. Everyone either fishes or talks about fishing most of the time. Len says the talkers are just that, “Talkers. They don’t fish.” I too talked about fishing, but mostly I listened to them talk. It wasn’t my talk that got me accepted into the community, but the fact that I took an afternoon nap.

This is the fishing trip where I started to believe in fishing karma and that mine isn’t good. Len had caught over eight thousand Crappie the year before and that was with him only being at the camp part of the year. The river was high, overflowing its banks. That isn’t a good sign for fishing. We fished all morning. Len caught one Crappie and I caught one Crappie. Mine was the smaller of the two, but I wasn’t complaining as it was over a pound and a half and it was the biggest Crappie I had ever seen.

Back at the fish camp I was gloating and I made the mistake of bragging about this fish. They pointed out that the state record Crappie is three pounds and eight ounces. One of the guys told me there is a state law requiring a Crappie to be over two pounds and eight ounces before you can brag about it.