Wanted to try Jonathan Dickinson Park one more time this year, so I headed up there yesterday. Conditions were similar to what they were a week ago or so, with one big difference. Instead of an outgoing tide, I'd have an incoming tide. But I figured as long as the water was moving in one direction or the other, the fish I wanted to catch, called Jack Crevalle, or just "jacks," would be out looking for mullet being pulled along by the moving water.
When I arrived at 10:30 or so, the tide was pretty much at bottom, with the roots of the mangroves along the shoreline exposed, and no flow whatsoever. At the boat ramp I met a fellow kayaker who also was just about to launch his boat. He said he'd been at John D. McArthur Park in north Palm Beach recently and had seen very large jacks, in the 20 pound range, chasing mullet. He'd not been to Jonathan Dickinson before and I told him he'd also likely find jacks here as well, but probably as big as he'd seen at McArthur.
I didn't expect much to be happening for the first couple hours, not until the tide changed direction and water began flowing in from the ocean. That proved to be the case. Around 12:30 I did notice a bit of movement in the tide and it was around then that the kayaker I'd talked to earlier paddled nearby. Just as he was asking me if I'd had any luck, he had a strike from what proved to be a jack, which he was able to reel in and release at the side of his kayak.
I was happy to see him hook a fish but it proved to be false encouragement. I don't know why but the incoming tide never did pick up much speed. I could see the water rising up the mangrove roots but the current was almost imperceptible. You would think the speed of the water coming in would be similar to what it was flowing out. But to judge from my observation yesterday, apparently not. I do know that high and low tides in a body of water differ according to the time of the lunar cycle in which they occur. There is a higher tidal differential at the full and new moon than during the the rest of the cycle. Yesterday I happened to see the moon in the afternoon sky and it was half full. So possibly the slow movement of the water coming in had to do with where we were then in the lunar cycle. If I'd stuck around for a second change of tide, the outflow might have been just as torpid as the inflow.
An hour or so later I noticed my fellow kayaker lashing his boat to the top of his car at the ramp and then pulling away. The fish I'd seen him catch may have been his only action of the day.
I stuck it out for another couple hours but never got a single strike in four hours of pedaling up and down the Loxahatchee River. I called it quits a little before three o'clock.
This was my final fishing trip of 2013. Too bad the year had to end with a skunk. But I can't complain about my luck here in Florida over the past few weeks. When you have a good day on the water, you think you've finally figured out something about why the fish were biting. Comes another day when you don't even get a bite and you're left scratching your head again. But that's fishing.
To read more of my writing about fishing, check out TRUSTING THE RIVER on Amazon.com. It's also now available as a downloadable audio book on Audible.com.
Hope to see you on the water.
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