There are few places Bill Landis would rather be than Bass Fishing Heaven, the fish camp he owns on Lake Seminole. Even when fish and fishermen are in short supply.
By Jeff Klinkenberg
Published June 17, 2003
[Times photos: James Borchuck]
Bill Landis relaxes at Bass Fishing Heaven in Seminole last week. Mounted on the wall behind him are some of the bass that were caught in Lake Seminole. Landis has owned the fish camp for five years.
Bill Landis, left, helps Kathi Sison and Randy Jaroszek shove off Sunday for an afternoon of fishing on Lake Seminole. For $30 you can rent a boat from Bass Fishing Heaven for four hours.
Bobbers line the counters at Bass Fishing Heaven. Hooks, sinkers, poles and live and artificial bait are also sold in the shop.
SEMINOLE - As the coots perform their creaky-door aria in a pea-green creek, a leather-lunged pig frog warns the world of its mighty presence.
"Croonk!" it declares. "CROONK!"
Bill Landis never tires of the soundtrack. He is owner of Bass Fishing Heaven, among west Florida's last fish camps. A fish out of water in crowded Pinellas County, his modest Lake Seminole business is a refuge from the strip shopping centers, mobile home parks and tire stores of the generic Florida next door.
Bass Fishing Heaven is a place where an angler can rent a boat and chew the fat, purchase a box of earthworms or pick up a couple of Rattlin' Rogue or Zara Spook lures in hope of catching something worth bragging about. "It's a relaxing place," says Landis, the latest owner in the camp's 40 years.
Most days life at the lake's only fish camp is all too relaxing. Like a lot of urban waterways, Lake Seminole suffers from ill health. Over the decades, pollution from storm-water runoff and fertilizers has damaged fisheries to the point where many anglers prefer to go elsewhere.
Bill Landis, 70, might be lonely at his fish camp, but he is also stubborn. Tuesdays through Sundays he's at the camp by sunup. He keeps his doors open until 6 p.m. whether anglers show up or not.
Fish tales
"Help yourself to a cup of coffee," he tells anyone who passes through his open door. His camp is a friendly kind of place, good for talk. In fact, it is easier to catch a good story than a fish at his place.
"Now Big Al - he was a guy who could catch bass," Landis is saying to his friend Butchie, who shows up every afternoon for the fish talk. "He could catch fish when nobody else could. Right?"
"Right."
"Big Al, he was from, where . . . Russia?"
"He was from Lithuania," Butchie says.
"That's right. Lithuania. Big Al moved to Indiana from Lithuania and was a boilermaker in a factory. He moved down here - he lived just down the lake - and he came here every day. He'd take out his boat and use a big stout rod with a short piece of line and dangle a plastic fishing worm in the lily pads. He caught some nice bass doing that. He was a big, solid guy. Just pulled those bass into the boat."
"Big Al, he'd tell you what he thought. He wouldn't hold back."
"I miss him."
"When did he die?"
"Last year, I think. He went home and went to sleep like always. He liked to sleep late, so his wife didn't think anything of it in the morning when he didn't wake up. About 11 she went into the bedroom and poked him. He was cold. Heart attack. I think he was 78. When I go, I want to die in my sleep, too."
"What was Big Al's last name?"
"For the life of me I don't know. That's how it is at a fish camp. First names only."
A lesson in lake evolution
Like Big Al, Landis is from Indiana. He grew up on a farm and always enjoyed fishing for bluegill after his chores. Later on he worked for Ford Motor Co. and in the timber business. In the 1980s he moved to Florida to take care of his aging mother. Eventually, she returned to Indiana, but he stayed.
Among other things he was passionate about fishing at Lake Seminole, especially for crappies, which Florida anglers call specks and fry up with hush puppies. Five years ago he took over the fish camp, even though the fishing, and probably even the fish camp, was past prime.
Decades ago, Bass Fishing Heaven was probably the best-known business on the 600-acre lake. Now the fish camp is difficult to find. A modest sign, easy to miss, is posted on Seminole Boulevard next to a used book store and a tavern among trailer parks and condos and strip shopping centers. Blink and you'll miss it.
In the old days, anglers crowded the lake hoping to catch big bass.
Every angler dreamed of landing one bigger than the world record 22-pound, 4-ounce specimen caught by George Perry in Montgomery Lake, Ga., in 1932. Even at Lake Seminole, many a serious fisherman was positive he had hooked such a behemoth, only to be spared his moment of glory by bad luck. But the truth is, only a few bass larger than 10 pounds have been officially weighed at Bass Fishing Heaven, none in more than a decade.
Bass certainly are in the lake, just not as many as once there were. One reason is pollution; the other is an invasion of tropical fish that over the years escaped from pet owners. Today, according to fishery biologists, one of the most plentiful fish in Lake Seminole is the tilapia from Africa. Also known as the Nile Perch, tilapia are excellent eating though hard to catch on hook and line. Bass devour them, but tilapia reproduce faster than bass and are in the process of taking over. Unlike bass and most other native fish, they seem to thrive in polluted water.
"There are people who come out in the lake and catch tilapia in cast nets," Landis says. "They sell to the restaurants and the fish markets."
A fish camp's bread and butter are the anglers who buy bait or rent boats. On most days, the boats stay at the dock. During the week, Landis sometimes has to wait 90 minutes between customers who want bait.
"No crickets today?"
In late afternoon, a customer finally materializes.
"No, the cricket guy didn't come. How about some worms?"
The guy buys worms.
"What are you trying to catch? Bream? Bass?"
"No," the customer says. "I've got a pond at home. I have to feed my turtles."
Casting about
Lake Seminole is probably more popular with water-skiers and ultralight airplane enthusiasts than fishermen these days. Speed boats roar across the shallow lake; on a calm weekend morning, the little airplanes glide above. A few hobbyists stash their ultralight seaplanes behind Bass Fishing Heaven.
"I've flown in one of those planes," Landis says. "It's fun."
But he'd rather be in a bass boat or in the shop selling bass stuff. Inside his shop, fishing tackle leans in the corners and hangs from the ceiling. Bobbers and hooks cover the counter, watched by a school of stuffed bass perched on the wall. Nearby is a well full of minnows and packets of King Kat Chicken Blood Catfish Bait.
"You don't want to open a package of that in the storm," Landis says. "It really smells bad. Catfish like bait the stinkier the better."
Next to the fish camp is a room full of junk. It belongs to Landis, a confirmed pack rat who visits garage sales and swap meets on Monday, when he closes the fish camp. He has old lawn mowers, tires, golf bags and bikes. Along his strip of property are junker boats and cars with flat tires. The grease under his fingernails reveals a talent for fixing old machinery.
Landis is tall and slender and has kept his diabetes at bay through diet and medication. But when it's warm, and when customers are few, he feels more his age. As the fans paddle the shop's warm air, a man gets sleepy. Often Landis nods off in his favorite stuffed chair. "I'd rather not nap," he says.
One day customers might return to the lake in droves. But that will be awhile. An $11-million cleanup of Lake Seminole is in the works, but when it will be finished, and what will be the result, nobody quite knows.
At any rate, Landis expects to be gone. It is hard to run a fish camp at a lake where fish and fishermen are in short supply.
"I'll probably sell the place," he says. "I might like to do some fishing when I retire. Maybe catch some crappies or bass, or maybe go out in the gulf and try for grouper. When you own a fish camp, you don't get a lot of time to fish."
He talks about retiring in January. But even that is in doubt. The calendar hanging on the wall at Bass Fishing Heaven is turned to the wrong month.
