You can’t see Flip Pallot’s home from the road. The driveway isn’t all that long, but the native cabbage palms and oak trees have created a hammock that blocks the sun’s harshest rays, allowing a soft light to filter through. The homestead has the aura of Old Florida set amidst the modern world.
As I pull in, Flip steps out of the detached garage, his laboratory, keeper of the tools needed for a life spent in the woods and on the water. Antlers hang from studs along the walls, and shelves are stacked with buckets, boots, arrows and all the garage accouterments. His airboat is parked dead center. The garage, a simple construction made of concrete blocks, feels like hallowed ground.
Many captains, students, friends and product developers have made this journey to spend time with the IGFA Hall of Famer and star of The Walker’s Cay Chronicles, which ran on ESPN from 1992 to 2006. They come to speak to the oracle, the wise one. His influence has spread throughout the fishing world like tree roots and sprouted in the form of like-minded anglers taught to appreciate nature and her gifts. The roots continue to grow, even in a world that is much different than the one Flip grew up in.
Philip “Flip” Pallot was born in South Florida in 1942. His parents were Florida people and raised their family in the farming community of Homestead. “We were right between Biscayne Bay and the Everglades,” Flip says. “If we went west, we were in the Glades, and if we went east, we were in Biscayne Bay and then the ocean, and just to the south and west were the Florida Keys. It was the perfect playing field for a young guy to grow up in and become interested in the natural world.”
At the time, Miami, which Flip pronounces My-AM-uh, was still small and had all the wilds a young adventurer could want. “Fishing for me started at a summer
