Fourth of a five-part series
EAST MANATEE - The snook would come off the fishermen’s boats in bunches. After all, the Braden River was legendary for snook.
And there would be 10-year-old Steve Marshall, waiting with fillet knife in hand to gather them from the men and clean their linesiders, redfish or whatever they happened to want to take home and fry.
This was almost 60 years ago, when the Braden River was deeper, and loaded with young snook that would spend winters in the warm, protected waters.
Steve was the young son of Ernie, owner of Marshall’s Braden River Mobile Home Park and the bar recognized by many snook fishermen as Marshall’s Landing.
Today, Steve Marshall still lives by the river, now on a bayou just west of the dam that divides Lake Evers from the brackish portion of the river. Today, he’s content to boat the river and absorb all of its majestic attributes that lured his father, who boxed for money during the Great Depression, from the north.
“My dad said, ‘We’re in Florida now, so we can’t freeze to death, and there’s lots of fish in the river, so we won’t starve,’ ” Steve recalls.
The 21-mile river flows to the north, emptying into the Manatee River inside the Bradenton city limits. From bird-watching, to fishing and boating, it offers a rich variety of recreational opportunities.
There are about five fingers of the headwaters of the Braden River east of Lorraine Road and just west of County Road 675. All but one of the fingers, which come together to form the river, are north of State Road 70.
In the dry season, the headwaters are often bone dry. There may be a series of puddles, and eventually a small, flowing stream. But even miles downstream at Linger Lodge, in the dry season, many portions of the Braden River are too shallow to paddle.
But most of the river offers a front-row seat on wildlife. It’s a wetlands habitat for a wide range of birds, fish and insects, as well as the occasional coyote, otter, manatee, turtle, porpoise and alligator.
Fishermen’s haven
Black light turns to pink, and pops and boils pepper the water surface. The pinkish tint that signals dawn is a well-known time to fish any water, anywhere, and Braden River is no different.
The river has long been a destination for snook lovers, as it’s a nursery for the linesiders. Ernie Marshall was a master snook fisherman here. His favorite lures were MirrOlures and Zara Spooks, and he preferred fishing during the first two months of cool weather when snook were schooled up and competitive. Ernie was convinced some 60 years ago that the change of the tide means a possible onslaught of bites.
His theory: When the tide changes, the grasses on the river’s bottom fold the opposite direction, thus spilling the critters that take shelter in the grasses. Snook are ambush feeders and will line up into the tide, waiting for the food to come whipping down the tide.
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