Still fishin’ - Cappy not retiring, yet …

The way that James “Cappy” Joiner talks, rumors of his retirement from fishing have been greatly exaggerated. While a bad back is hindering him a bit, he fully intends to captain the Sally J for all of the major tarpon tournaments in 2008, including Ladies’ Day, and plans to take advantage of the fine fishing he has predicted for the year as much as possible.

“I’m not fishing full-time, but I’m fishing,” he said. “At least all the tournaments and a few other days here and there.”

While Capt. David Chatham has been running charters on Cappy’s boat, the Sally J, part-time recently, Cappy has been going to doctor visits and trying to get his back to heal. He thinks he injured it during a recent pheasant hunting trip out west when he misjudged a ditch he was trying to jump.

As far as full-fledged retirement goes, Cappy said he has given the matter some thought.

“Yep, I probably will,” he said. “But not yet. I’m still president of the Guides’ Association, I’m still going to be around.”

Last Saturday, as a matter of fact, Cappy went out offshore fishing on Saturday with Capt. Eddie Barnhill and the fishing was fine.

“We went offshore about 28 miles,” he said. “We caught 10 or 12 head of grouper, and got a pretty-good sized snapper, too. There’s still a lot of good fishing out there, we just gotta get to it. The shore gets fished so hard, so heavy.”

Cappy said he hasn’t been tarpon fishing yet, his first official day of tarpon season will be April 30. He said other guides have been out for some time.

“They’ve been out there,” Cappy said. “Timmy (Smith), Tater (Spinks), they’ve been catching these tarpon now for over a month. Back in March, even, they did some. They told me there was a lot of tarpon out there the other day.”

Cappy said he believed the fish were running so well because of an early spring.

“We’re two weeks ahead on vegetation,” he said. “My oak trees bloomed two weeks early, I can tell that by all the leaves I have to rake up, and what time of year I have to do it. Consequently, it started fishing out early, in most cases. We’ve had the best fishing in this area in the last year than we’ve had in a long, long, time, especially with no red tide. The king fish, king mackerel, Spanish mackerel, pompano … it’s all been excellent. It’s some of the best fishing I’ve ever seen.”

When he thinks about leaving fishing, he also thinks about some of the loyal clients he has become friends with over the years, and how it would be hard to part ways with his profession.

“When you think about it, Boca Grande Pass has always been a camaraderie of ‘good ol boy’ types and people who visit here who have fished here for years,” he said. “I have one client who was 28 when he started fishing with me. He’s 52 or 53 now. He’s still fishing, he’ll be here next week. I’ve been fishing with kids that were just going to college, then pretty soon they got out of college. Now, some of them are ready to retire.”