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Joe Harley fell in love with Pine Island when he was just a boy. When his family relocated to Florida from Pennsylvania in 1978, Harley was only in the first grade. His father, a builder, moved the family to Fort Myers because they had family there, but it wasn’t long before his father found himself remodeling a home on Pine Island.
“The next thing you know we started coming out here to go fishing at the bridge, and within a year my dad bought a house on the same street as the one he remodeled,” said Harley. “I remember falling in love with Pine Island in the first grade. I knew at a young age that I was proud of the island, it was such great living. I was there when they built the Winn-Dixie. I was there when they started a Little League. It was our own world — this blue collar, working people’s place, where everyone was a fisherman or working the trades.”
Harley credits the island with the many friends that he made and being able to enjoy the outdoors, he said, was a big part of his love for growing up here.
“It’s just such a small-town friendly community,” said Harley.
Being from a baseball family made Little League an easy decision for Harley, as he said his grandfather once played in the Major Leagues.
“All the volunteer firemen were coaches,” Harley recalls. “In fact, my father built the concession stand. He built that press box, with a little roof and shingles. It stood through Hurricane Charley.”
The same concession stand is there to this very day, donated by Apex builders, where his father worked. Harley was one of the few students of the island middle school, which was only out here for a short time.
“I was here for some big things that will never be the same,” said Harley, “the store opening, the Little League starting, the short time the middle school was here. Even as a kid I knew not everyone was lucky enough to be in love with, and so proud of, the place that they were growing up. I just knew from a young age that I lived in a special place and as I got older, I watched people leave Pine Island.”
In time, Harley became a fishing guide, sure that he could show people the things he’d learned from living on the water. Unlike many islanders, Harley doesn’t feel as though there have been many drastic changes on the island since growing up here.
“I was here to watch it go from a commercial fishing to a sport-fishing community, and all the turmoil that went with that,” said Harley. “That has changed but I think commercial fishing families are still fishing, it’s still peaceful. It’s still Pine Island and still about water life. I don’t feel that it’s changed a ton since my youth.”
Being in the hospitality business, as a fly-fishing guide, Harley said puts him in a unique position to meet new people often.
“I meet great people moving here all the time,” said Harley. “To people moving here I always say, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood.’ I think we all move here for the same reasons. If you don’t fall in love with the island, there’s really no reason to move here. I feel like today’s people are environmentally conscious — they are as focused, if not more focused, on preserving the island.”
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