Great day on Cumberland River

Haven't posted recently because, frankly, I've had some bad luck with fishing. A couple weeks ago I drove out to the East Fork of Indian Creek in the Daniel Boone National Forest only to find that the trout stocking truck hadn't made a visit yet and the stream had no fish in it. A week later, I drove to Great Crossing Park near Georgetown, Ky to fish the North Fork of Elkhorn creek and discovered the park was closed due to a construction project. I won't even mention the numerous times recently when I've actually gotten to cast a rod someplace and haven't caught a thing.

Well, all the fishing dues I've been paying recently bought me a tremendous day on the Cumberland River yesterday--possibly the best day I've ever had on the Cumberland in 30 years of fishing it.

Followers of this blog (not sure if I even have any) will know that for the past several months I've mostly been fishing from my Gheenoe, which has a trolling motor and a six horsepower outboard. Yesterday I decided I would leave the Gheenoe home, since I haven't been doing well fishing the Cumberland with it anyway, and take my canoe instead. The Gheenoe gives me access to several miles of the river, because the outboard can buck the current upstream. But yesterday my plan was to wade the shoreline very close to where I parked my vehicle. I'd only need the canoe to cross the river and fish the bank opposite the boat launch.

When I first arrived at the river I was a bit dismayed--the flow level looked higher than I'd anticipated. I'd been planning to wade but now I wasn't sure how possible that would be. As I was studying the water, a large fish, probably a trout, jumped near the bank opposite where I was standing. Well, that was a positive sign, anyway.

Back in the parking lot, I pulled on my waders. I'd just driven two and a half hours to get here, so I wasn't going to give up without at least trying to get into the water.

As it turned out, it wasn't quite as deep as I'd first thought. The sky was overcast and the surface ruffled from gusty winds, so earlier I couldn't see down through the water. But the depth and current was such that I was able to get far out enough that I could avoid snagging weeds on my backcast.

I started out with my seven weight rod and a sink tip line. To the tippet I knotted a white crystal schminnow fly that I had tied myself. I had a hit right away but then nothing for a while. Since at that point the day was somewhat dark, I switched to a brown and black schminnow. I started getting action immediately. I caught two rainbow trout on the boat-ramp side of the river and lost several more. The fish were hitting my fly hard and so I struck back hard to set the hook. But that only resulted in my breaking off the fish and sometimes my fly as well.

After a couple hours of casting along the boat-ramp bank, I got in my canoe and paddled across the river to the other side. Before long I found a sweet spot where there was a low ridge of rocks that broke the current. Many, many trout were hanging out just in front of those rocks. I stopped trying to set the hook and just waited until the fish hooked themselves. The first few fish were probably recent stockers. But then one that was considerably bigger took my fly, even though it was in the same area. That's the fish you see in the photo above. It's hard to judge the size of that fish by the photo. I estimate that it was 20 inches plus. I don't think I've ever caught a bigger or more beautiful trout in the Cumberland.

I continued working my way slowly downstream--very slowly, because I kept hooking and mostly catching trout.  In an area similar to the first one I hooked a fish that at first seemed no bigger than the eight to ten inch fish I'd been catching. But a few seconds after I felt it at the end of my line, it took off downstream, into some faster water, and my entire fly line spun off the arbor of my reel and then I was into the backing line. I've never had a trout take me into my backing before. The last time this happened to me, I was up in Michigan with a twenty pound chinook salmon on the line.

I was using 4X tippet, which has a breaking strength of around six pounds of pressure. That's enough to hold most trout. But because of the size of this fish and the strong current it was in, I had to be very careful not to apply too much pressure.

Once I got the fish into my net, I saw that it was slightly smaller than the first one and not as brightly colored.  I took the picture you see below with the fish lying on top of my landing net. I just measured the oval of the net and it's sixteen inches. As you can see, the tail of that fish extends several inches beyond the oval. So I'm estimating that fish as at least eighteen inches.

I continued to catch more trout as the afternoon wore on. I lost one that probably would have been in the 15-16 inch range but never got a close look at it.

I ran out of the dark schminnows I'd been using and put on a dark bead-head wooly bugger. The trout liked that one, too. Apparently, anything long and dark that could have been food was enough for them to take a swipe at it.

For the final half hour of the day, I switched over to my five weight rod with floating line and tried a nymph and indicator rig. The trout seemed to like this less well than the big streamers I'd been throwing. But I still managed to catch a couple more.

I had thought yesterday would be my last day of fishing in Kentucky this year. I hadn't been expecting to have much luck and I know the weather is starting to close in. But after yesterday's experience, I may have to give it at least one more shot.

Video I shot of yesterday's trip is available at:

http://youtu.be/keDVpq7smME

Hoh River Steelhead fishing

Haven't posted in a while, as I haven't been on the water much lately.  However, last week on a family vacation to Olympic National Park in Washington State I managed one day on the Hoh River to fish for steelhead.

I've never fished the Pacific northwest and knew relatively little about the fishery up there, other than that salmon, steelhead and trout swim the rivers leading out to the ocean.  I only had one day to spare but didn't want to miss the opportunity to cast a fly for these fish.  I contacted Waters West, a fly shop in the town of Port Angeles on the the Olympic peninsula. They rented me waders, boots and set me up with a guide for a trip down the Hoh River, which at this time of the year is the only stream with enough flow to float a boat.

My guide, Curt, picked me up outside the motel at 6:30 a.m. and we set out for an access point on the Hoh, which is about 75 miles from Port Angeles.

Once we arrived at the river, Curt handed me a Spey rod and gave me a casting lesson. Spey casting is the primary method for presenting a fly to steelhead when wading up there in the Pacific northwest.  I've never casted a long two-handed rod before.  It took me a bit to figure out how to fling the fly at the end of the line most of the way across the river, where it would then swing across the current and possibly attract a steelhead.  Meanwhile, Curt got busy dunking his trailer off the inflatable raft we'd be fishing from for the day.  Inflatables rather than drift boats are used at this time of year because they make less noise when scraping across the rocks when you are floating downstream.

I think I could get into Spey casting, given enough practice time, but I was glad when Curt said we were ready to set off in the raft down the Hoh.  He switched me from the Spey to a conventional 8 weight Sage with a nymph and indicator rig.  Actually, the rig was two orange egg flies below a couple of split shot and a bobber.  We stuck with this set-up the entire day, never changing flies at all.  Since steelhead don't feed when in freshwater streams, it apparently makes sense to lure them with bright egg flies rather than natural-looking nymphs.

Curt estimated the flow that day at around 600 cfs.  It hadn't rained up there in quite a while. What sustains the river is melt-water from the Mount Olympus glacier, which is the primary source of the Hoh.  In the upper stretch where we put in, the river only covered about a fifth of the gravel stream-bed.  A couple times during the day Curt had to get out of the boat and pull us over rocks when we bottomed-out.  Due to the lack of rainfall, Curt said the salmon had yet to make their fall migration up the river.  Nevertheless, we might find some summer steelhead and possibly some sea-run cutthroat trout.

I have always assumed that northern salmon and steelhead rivers that connect to the ocean on either coast hold populations of resident trout.  That's the case in Great Lakes streams, which also have salmon and steelhead.  But Curt told me that the only resident fish in the rivers up there are whitefish; the state doesn't stock trout in the coastal rivers and so the only sport fish worth catching are anadramous, i.e. salmon, steelhead and sea-run cutthroat.  This was news to me.  When Curt had asked me a couple days earlier what kind of fishing I had in mind, I had told him if the steelhead were scarce, I'd be happy to catch trout all day.  Well, I found out that wasn't an option.  Since the cutthroat, like the salmon, hadn't made much of an appearance yet, it was going to be steelhead or nothing.

Early in the trip down the Hoh I hooked and brought to the boat what turned out to be a whitefish.  I know whitefish are considered the bane of western trout anglers, but I was glad to get the skunk out of the boat.

Around 10:30, as we were passing through a deep pool with submerged rocks, my indicator dipped again.  I lifted the rod tip and saw something flash at the end of my line.  "That's a steelhead," Curt said.

The fish didn't jump or make long runs.  I let it take line off the reel via the drag whenever it wanted. Meanwhile, Curt started rowing us over to a gravel beach where we could land the fish.  He only carries a small net in his boat suitable for trout, preferring to seize larger fish by the tail in shallow water when they have been sufficiently tired out.  Once the raft was beached, we both climbed out.  I kept tension on the fish and reeled in slack whenever possible.  Curt waded out toward the fish.  I tried sliding it several times to him.  Seeing Curt, the fish headed for deeper water each time he approached.  Finally, exhausted, it allowed him to close his hand around its tail.  I got out my camera and snapped some photos of him holding the fish, then he handed the fish off to me (slowly, carefully) and took the picture with his cell phone you see above.  He said it was a male in the 7-9 pound range, probably a hatchery fish and not nearly as big as the wild 20 pounders that enter the river with the high water in the spring, but a beautiful fish nonetheless.  I was certainly thrilled to have caught it!

We released the fish and got back on the river.  After we ate lunch, I waded out into the river and had another go with the Spey rod in a broad, deep run that Curt said was suitable for swinging a fly. After about 20 minutes, I'd had enough and we resumed our journey down river. Curt maneuvered us through various runs, riffles, rapids and rock gardens, directing me where to cast my indicator rig.  We did hook another small fish that came off before we got to identify it as either another whitefish or possibly a small cuttie.

All day long it had been bright and sunny.  Perhaps the summer steelhead would have been more active with cloud cover and rain.  But in terms of comfort and aesthetics, you couldn't ask for better weather.  It was also very enjoyable to be able to talk fishing all day with someone who's as passionate about it as you are.

The final stretch we fished is called the Oxbow canyon (I think).  Here, the river pours through a narrower gap between the trees on either shoreline and you find faster and more turbulent water.  Many times we passed over a spot Curt considered fishy and then, once we reached the end of that run, would work hard on the oars to pull us back upstream so I could fish it again.  I'm assuming he's seen fish come out of those places before and wanted to cover it as thoroughly as possible.   But that morning steelhead turned out to be the only significant fish I caught.  Still, it validated the day--not to mention the money it cost to be out there.

We exited the river around five o'clock.  Curt re-loaded the raft on the trailer and we drove back to Port Angeles, arriving there around 6:45.  It had been a very full day.  I may never get back to fish that area again.  But I'll definitely take the opportunity, if another one comes my way.

North Fork of Elkhorn Creek

I can only manage the long drive down to Burkesville for trout fishing about once a week. I'd like to hit the water more often than that, so I thought I'd give the North Fork of Elkhorn Creek a try.  It's only about a 45 minute drive from my house.  The North Fork is slow-current, warm water fishing.  It's got some bass and panfish in it.  I've caught a few of both on spinning tackle using plastic worms and small crankbaits.  This time I brought my 7 weight fly rod with the sink-tip line and some small flies and poppers -- the same setup I use for fresh water fishing in Florida.  My expectations were pretty low for this trip.  But it was a beautiful afternoon and it's  a  short drive to the boat ramp (compared to Bukesville), so I decided to give it a try.

I started out throwing a San Juan Worm, which is a small plastic wormy-type fly normally used in trout streams.  It was still on my leader from my last trip to the Cumberland.  I thought maybe the bass and panfish in the North Fork would think it looked like a caterpillar fallen from a tree.

Well, after about twenty minutes not much was happening, so I switched to one of the tiny green popper flies I had such good luck with in Florida.  I had reached a shady section of the creek where the bank was steep and strewn with rocks.  I caught a small bluegill almost immediately and then another one a cast or two later.  As I worked my way down that shady bank I picked up more small fish every half dozen casts or so.  I'm not kidding about "small."  Some of these fish would have made a good live bait to throw with a spinning outfit.  I hadn't brought anything but my 7 weight, so I just kept casting the TGP and catching fish.  I even got a largemouth bass to grab it.

I fished from 2 until 5 p.m. and caught about 15 fish altogether, so it was one of those trips that turn out much better than expected.

Getting my Gheenoe re-trailered at the boat ramp was tricky.  The ramp, though made of grooved cement, is covered in moss and is about the slipperiest thing I've ever tried to stand on.  I did manage to get my boat back on the trailer without falling on my butt, mainly because I kept myself upright by holding onto either the trailer or the boat itself for balance.

Video of the trip is here:

http://youtu.be/-s8fT0m4Ku4

Cumberland River Nymphing

I did my weekly trip to the Cumberland yesterday. It was hot and humid on the river.  Fog started to develop in mid-afternoon but then the sun came out again and burned it off again.  Threatened thunderstorms didn't develop.

Since I haven't had much luck lately with streamers, I spent almost the whole day throwing a double nymph combination (size 16 Pheasant Tail, size 20 Copper John) under an indicator and split shot. Action was OK, not as good as last time.  I got three fish to the boat and lost four or five others before I could reach them with the net.  For a while there were quite a few midges flitting about.  Every now and then I'd see a mayfly or caddis.  A few trout were eating something either on or just under the surface.  Could have been dead midges on the surface or some kind of emerger.  I did one long drift with dry flies:  a hopper and a light Cahill, which resembled the mayflies I was seeing.  My dry fly casting isn't the greatest but because I was in a boat drifting at the exact speed of the current, once my flies plopped down on the surface they ought to have looked pretty natural.  I got a couple drifts right over the top of some fish that had surfaced a few seconds earlier.  But nothing came up for my flies.  Since the nymphs were working, more or less, I went back to them late in the day, when I caught a small brown trout and a bigger rainbow.  Video is available at:

http://youtu.be/vZ3H-pxWEDw

Nice weather, nice fish

Since we've been back in Kentucky I've been fishing the Cumberland River tailwater in southern Kentucky for trout every week or two from my Gheenoe.

Yesterday was a beautiful day weatherwise -- partly cloudy, low humidity, no wind, temperature in the 70s.  This is pretty rare in Kentucky in July.  I'm glad I was able to take advantage of it.

It's a long haul from where I live to where I put in on the river.  It's a two and a half hour drive; then time spent packing up the Gheenoe and dunking it off the boat ramp; finally a 30 minute drive upriver to the spot where I start fishing.  It wasn't until after noon yesterday that I took my first cast.

I started off throwing a streamer toward the vertical bank that I believe I showed in the video accompanying my previous post.  I had one bite in that first drift but the fish came off.   I switched flies to a San Juan Worm, which flutters a bit in the water and which I thought might look like a caterpillar to the trout, and then motored back upstream to drift over the same water with this different fly.  Well, the fish either didn't care for the San Juan Worm or were too deep in the water column to see it.  The flow in the river was still pretty strong at this point.

After this second drift I switched to a different rod and a different technique.  I tried a double nymph combination (a size 16 Hare's Ear and a size 20 Copper John) under a split shot and a neon orange strike indicator.  I drifted a different section of the river and hooked three trout on the nymph rig.  All of them broke off.  The hook on the Hare's Ear seemed sharp to me but I know that fly has been in my nymph box for quite a while, so maybe it wasn't as sharp as it needed to be.  I then put on a Pheasant Tail nymph fly of a more recent vintage.  I caught the first trout I hooked and several more thereafter, either on the PT or the smaller Copper John.

By this point in the afternoon it was around three o'clock and the water level in the river had begun to drop and the current to slow down.  I had good action from then on, until I quit around six o'clock.  I hooked a bunch more fish.  Some broke off, some I managed to get all the way to the boat.

Most of the fish I'm catching in the Cumberland this year are good size, between 15 and 20 inches.  In earlier years, the average Cumberland trout was between 8-10 inches.  I don't know this for a fact, but it may be that the folks at the trout hatchery just below the dam have been holding fish back and allowing them to grow a bit as we all waited for work on Wolf Creek Dam to be completed and the river below it to return to normal.  So I'm thinking I'm catching hatchery fish recently stocked, rather than holdover fish from previous years that have grown up.  If anyone reading this knows what's up with this, please leave a comment.  In any case, the Cumberland is really fishing well right now, but you need to be there in low water levels.  Check the generation schedule on the TVA website

http://www.tva.com/river/lakeinfo/index.htm

and plan your trip accordingly.

Here's some video I shot yesterday:

http://youtu.be/t12b0ce-JtI

None of the fish I got to the boat show up in the video.  By the time I got the fish into the boat, they were pretty exhausted and I didn't want to further risk their health by holding them out of the water for a video.  Also, it's tougher to take video in moving water like the Cumberland than in still water, such as I fish in Florida.  I need a hand on the rod and another on the trolling motor I use to control my position as the boat drifts downstream.  If I want to hold a camera, I either need to set the rod down or take my hand off the TM in order to take the camera out of my shirt pocket and aim it.  One of these days I'll get a camera mount, like other anglers do.

Foggy Cumberland River fly fishing

You can't catch one of these in Florida.  It's a brown trout from the Cumberland River tailwater here in Kentucky.  I hope to be seeing more of these over the next few months, as I'll be far away from mayans, snook, peacock bass, etc.  This trout was lying still in my landing net as I picked up my camera but just as I was about to click the shutter it began thrashing about the bottom of the boat.  It was around 15 inches.  A few minutes earlier I had caught a brownie a few inches bigger than this one.

Up here in Kentucky I fish the Cumberland and other waters from a Gheenoe with a six horse power Tohatsu outboard and a small trolling motor.  When I fish the Cumberland I often launch at a spot called Traces, which is a couple miles south of the town of Burkesville.  Yesterday I arrived at the boat launch at around 11:15 a.m.  It's about a two and a half hour drive from where I live in central Kentucky.  This is a very long way to go to fish, I know.  There are several closer access points to the Cumberland, though all are at least a couple hours drive.  I prefer Traces because it's on private property and, although the owner charges $5 to launch your boat, the parking area is very open and the ramp itself is never crowded.

The Cumberland tailwater was beginning to get a national reputation as a trout stream a decade or more ago.  But then in 2006 a leak was discovered in Wolf Creek Dam, which impounds Lake Cumberland.  Repairs were begun to fix the problem but in the meantime the lake had to be lowered by some thirty feet to reduce pressure on the dam as it was being repaired.  This meant that the water coming out of the bottom of the dam was much warmer than it had been formerly.  Each summer the water temperature reached the high 60s and this caused a lot of stress on the trout.  You could still catch them  but their numbers were greatly reduced.

Earlier this year the Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the dam, announced that the dam was fixed and the Corps allowed the lake to return to its normal level.  With the cold winter Kentucky suffered through this year, there is now plenty of cold water to sustain the Cumberland tailwater through this summer.

Yesterday the water temperature was in the low 50s; this, combined with the very hot, humid air just above it, and the lack of any breeze whatsoever, caused thick fog to form over the river.  This often happens early in the morning on summer days.  When I arrived yesterday, the fog was still there.  Only once before can I remember fog on the river lasting late into the morning.  Yesterday, it never really did dissipate.  It thinned out for an hour or two in mid-afternoon but then returned later on.

The fog forced me to be very cautious motoring upstream, as I could only see 50 yards or so ahead of me.  I know this section of the Cumberland pretty well but haven't been on it since last fall.  There could be new deadfalls and other obstructions in the water I wouldn't know about, not to mention other anglers drifting quietly downstream.

It took me almost 30 minutes to motor upstream to the point where I wanted to begin fishing.  There was a pretty good current in the river at that point coming downstream from Wolf Creek Dam.  I pulled over to the right bank and lodged my boat in behind some deadfalls, so the boat wouldn't begin to drift as I was rigging up my fly rod.

I started with a copper john nymph below a strike indicator on my 5 weight fly rod.  When I fish from the Cap'n Dan, which is what I call my Gheenoe, I generally fish from the bow of the boat, where my trolling motor is.  The TM won't buck a current as strong as the Cumberland but it does well to position the boat for casting to the bank and to move it out and away from any obstructions in my way.

After drifting with the nymph for twenty minutes or so I removed the strike indicator--actually a small bobber that's supposed to keep your fly just off the bottom--because I thought it was keeping my fly from getting down to where the fish might be.  From then on, the copper john floated deeper in the water column.  But by the time I finished that first drift I still hadn't had a bite.

I re-started my outboard and ran back upstream.  As I was doing so I remembered a tip someone had once given me about fishing this stretch of the Cumberland.  He had said he had "hung," as he called it, a big trout around some steep bluffs above a place called Bear Creek.  This guy used a Mepps spinner to catch his trout.  I was fly fishing, and a streamer fly offers a bit of the same profile to the fish as a spinner.

Once I reached these bluffs, I switched to my 7 weight rod with the sink tip line - the same set-up I use for freshwater fishing in Florida.  I tied on a brown and black streamer fly called a Schminnow, invented by Sanibel Island fly angler Norm Ziegler for catching snook along the beaches there.  It's not unlike a wooly bugger, which is a standard trout streamer, when tied in darker colors.

I began casting toward the steep bank and retrieving the fly with a sharp, erratic yanks on the fly line.  About halfway down along the bluff, two fish darted out from a couple feet in front of the bank, and attacked my fly.  One of them got hooked.  It took me several minutes to bring it to hand.  Once I got it in my landing net I realized I had "foul hooked" the fish--my fly had snagged the fish in the belly, which is why it was able to fight so hard and for so long.   True sportsmen don't like to foul hook fish.  I will say that this fish definitely had gone after my fly.  How it managed to get hooked in the belly, I don't know.

Once I got to the end of the bluff, I used went back to the beginning of it, to try the area again.  This time I hooked another brown trout in the same area as the first one.  It might well have been one of the two fish I had seen earlier.  This one was a bit smaller than the first, but fair-hooked in the corner of the mouth.  It's the one you see in the photo above.

I had a few more passes down the bluff, since this area clearly was holding fish.  I caught a fish that turned out to be a smallmouth bass.  Then it was time to move on.

The fog, which had dissipated somewhat in mid-afternoon, returned.  I allowed my boat to drift downstream with the current, as I cast the streamer to drowned timber along the banks.

At the present time, releases from the dam shut down at night.  Since the area I was fishing is 35 miles or so from the dam, this change in flow takes a while to register. Around three o'clock I noticed a perceptible slow-down.  Also, the level of the river itself began to lower.  Fishing a tailwater river like the Cumberland is not unlike fishing tidal waters in south Florida, except that the rise and fall of the water is caused by a dam's gates opening and closing at the command of a computer program, rather than the moon.

The only action I had had on the streamer was along that bluff.  But as the afternoon wore on I noticed trout beginning to rise sporadically.  I had seen a mayfly or two but nothing you could call a hatch.  Nevertheless, a few trout were finding something to eat off the surface.

I had to weigh what to do next.  Despite the fact that I was floating over 50 degree water, the air temperature was 90 degrees or so, and I'd been sweltering.  I could cool off by hurrying back to the launch ramp and then wet-wading the shallow but swift area just below that ramp.  But as I saw more and more trout rising to the surface, I decided instead to go back to the five weight rod and rig it with a dry fly.

First, I had to burn off the remaining fuel in my outboard engine.  I've owned the Tohatsu for eight years.  It always runs fine at the beginning of the season, after I've had it tuned up.  Later in the summer, it gets harder and harder to start, because the fuel system gets clogged.  My boat mechanic said it's because of the way modern gasoline separates after it sits for a while due to all the ethanol that's put into it.  This year I've decided to burn every last bit of fuel remaining in the fuel system at the end of each use in hopes of avoiding this issue later on.  

So as I approached a shoal area where I saw fish rising, I turned on the engine, disconnected the fuel line from the engine, and allowed the engine to run until it stopped. This took about fifteen minutes, which shows how much fuel remains in an engine even after the supply is cut off.

From then on I used the trolling motor to maneuver close to the shoal so I could cast close to the rising trout.  I made three passes.  The fish weren't interested in my dry fly.  If I'd had any action at all, I would have stayed out longer.  But by then it was 5:15 and I still had to re-trailer the Cap'n Dan, stow all my gear and drive for two and a half hours before I was pulling into my driveway at home.

I called it quits.

Some video of my day on the Cumberland can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z5kGvfvZtw&list=UURDkdkwjV228oFTKX66tqYw

If one place doesn't fish...try another!

Drove out to the Everglades yesterday to a place called the Harold E. Campbell Public Use Area.  It's five miles east of Rt. 27 in an area of the Everglades called the "Holey <sic> Lands," since it was once used as a target practice area for the Air Force.  The terrain is apparently full of holes where bombs were dropped.  Google Maps confirmed the boat ramp mentioned in the online description of the place that I read.  Since it was five miles off the main drag, I thought there was a chance it didn't get much angler pressure.  The fishing would be in a canal that runs parallal to the access road from Rt. 27.  Since I hadn't been able to get  to that other canal a week ago or so, which is on the opposite side of Rt. 27, I thought I'd give this place a try.

Actually, to get to the Campbell area you have to go slightly past the Brown's Farm canal, which is the one I failed to get to a week ago.  This time as I approached the turn-off to Brown's Farm, I slowed down to take a look at the gate and fencing in front of the water control facility.  Well, yesterday the gate was open and I could have driven straight in.  I realized it's possible last week I'd driven by it so fast (I hadn't slowed down and pulled off onto the shoulder) that I hadn't seen that the gate was actually open then, too.  Maybe it was.  Maybe I'd seen the fencing and gate and since they looked closed, I'd just driven right by.  But I was pretty sure I'd do well at the place I'd set as my destination for the day (Campbell) and also, I worried about driving through those open gates now only to find that they were closed later in the day when I tried to get out.  Could that actually happen?  Yes, definitely it could.  So I merged back onto Rt. 27, made a U-turn a little past the Palm Beach County line and then turned off at the access road back to the Campbell Area.

The road was in good shape but was raised a couple feet above the land on either side of it.  If I came to a barrier, I'd have a tough time making a U-turn back to Rt. 27 with my trailer.  I'd have to uncouple the trailer from the hitch on the Subaru, spin the trailer around 180 degrees by hand and then re-couple it to my vehicle.  As I learned last week at Black Creek, you never know what you're gonna find when you arrive at some destination you've never been to before.  

Well, no problems yesterday.  I found the parking area and boat ramp at the end of the five mile road. The place even had a bathroom.  There was one SUV with an empty boat trailer parked in the lot.  I'd have no problem getting Kita (what I call my banana-yellow Hobie Pro Angler) into the water here.  But as I looked around from the bottom of the boat ramp, I couldn't tell how to get from there to the canal that ran beside the road I had just driven back to this place.  The ramp put you into a big rectangle of water.  From where I stood, I couldn't see if the rectangle of water in front of me led to an outlet to the canal.  Behind me was another large body of water.  Maybe that led to the canal.  I could probably fish either of these two bodies of water,  but the shorelines looked rather barren and I wasn't seeing any fish breaking the surface of either one.

I took out my iPhone and let Google Maps load up.  Once it did, it showed where I stood in relation to these two big rectangular ponds.  It looked like you got to the canal I was looking for at the far right end of the one directly in front of me.  That corner of the pond was about half a mile away and if there was an outlet way down there, I couldn't see it.

Nevertheless, that's the way I started pedaling, once I got Kita off-loaded from the trailer and all my gear in it.  I already wasn't all that happy about having to travel half a mile before I could even start fishing.  I still had a clouser minnow tied on my Sage Largemouth rod from my last trip.  I threw that out and let troll as I pedaled out 25 feet or so from the shoreline.  I'd pause to cast it toward the shallow water every so often along the bank and didn't pedal at quite top speed, to give the clouser a chance to lure a fish.

As I approached the far end of the water rectangle I confirmed there was indeed an outlet that must lead to the canal.  The shorelines I was passing had relatively little cover.  And there really  wasn't much spatterdock or submerged weeds in the shallows.  Every now and then I'd startle a gator resting in the narrow strip of grass just back from the waterline.  I still wasn't seeing much surface activity.

Once I got in the canal proper I switched from the Sage to my 7 weight rod with the sink tip line.  I started out casting one of my bright green Sqwirm Worms.

I guess when I decided to try this place I had figured an Everglades canal was an Everglades canal - they're all full of fish, right?  Apparently not.  I spent about two hours working both banks of this canal.  I caught one small Largemouth bass and had a couple of "soft" bites.  This wasn't the action I was looking for.

I began to think I ought to try somewhere else.  I'd done pretty well at the Rt. 27 Canal a couple weeks ago.  It was about 10 miles south on Rt. 27, in the same direction I'd have to take later on to drive home.

By around 12:15 it was clear I wasn't catching much in this present spot.  So I pedaled back to the ramp, loaded up, and drove south to the same ramp I'd launched from a couple weeks ago.

I had the place to myself.  By then (around 1:15), the wind had come up a bit.  It was blowing south to north up the canal.  I headed north and cast my Tiny Green Popper (size 10) to the west bank.  Earlier, I'd thought the heat might to be too much by mid-afternoon.  But between the breeze and passing puffy clouds that blocked out the sun, the weather wasn't too bad.  Also I'd brought a lot of water with me.

I started picking up fish pretty quickly and the action continued in fits and starts until I called it quits around 4:45.  I'd estimate I brought around 30 fish to hand, mostly LM, but also Bluegill and even a gar that snapped its long snout down on the the TGP.  Biggest LM was around 15-16 inches, a few in the 12 inch class.  The BG were mostly pretty small.  Several times I'd sense a strike, pull the rod back quickly and yank the poor fish clear out of the water.  One I even smacked into the side of my kayak. These fish were tearing up my TGPs.  As an experiment I tried both the Sqwirm Worm and the next size larger popper I had with me in bright green.  They did attract fish but the action slowed way down.  I could catch fish every few casts on the TGP, or once every 10-15 minutes with something else.

At one point I was hauling a small BG back to the boat when it was attacked violently by two larger fish - LM, I'm pretty sure.  These bigger fish swirled at it several times but couldn't quite swallow it. 

Thinking about it now, what I could have done was transfer one of these little BG I was catching on the the fly rod to a 3.0 hook on my spin rod and let the fish swim around out there and see what it would bring up.  I bet the biggest fish in that canal (and maybe some gators, too, unfortunately) would be interested in a distressed BG swimming around.  Next time I'm there, I may try that:  catch "bait" on the fly rod, then use it to attract larger fish on the spin rod.

I could have fished the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening and kept catching more bass, etc.  But I felt I'd already done well enough for one day.  

I pulled Kita out of the water around 5 p.m. and a little more than an hour later I was home.  That spot seems further from here than it actually is.  The drive is pretty much all highway - no stopping and starting at myriad traffic lights, as when I have to pass through towns like Jupiter or Stuart on my way to inshore (salt water) destinations.  

I noticed yesterday that the water level in that canal is way down from what it must have been a couple months ago.  The low water gives fish fewer places to hide.  I was finding them under spatterdock pads every few feet.  Whenever there'd be a bit of a clear space back to the bank, I would cast back there and almost every time something would dart out and try to grab my fly.  Even some of the larger bass I caught were hanging out beneath those "parasols."

Not long after I got there I had pulled off amongst the spatterdock to untangle my line.  I'd nearly run over  a couple bass sheltering there.  They didn't spook at my presence.  So once I fixed my line, I dropped my fly right down on top of them.  They both exploded on it - and missed.  I dropped it on them a second time and caught one of the two.  It was that kind of day.

Maybe with the water level up early in the year, that spot wouldn't fish so well.  But earlier in the year, I can fish and do well at the cypress swamp up at Riverbend.  When the level in the sloughs up there gets too low, I can switch to this canal.  Both places are about equidistance, in terms of driving. But at Riverbend I've got the double kayak-portage issue, to get back to the cypress swamp, where at this canal, I'm casting and catching fish five minutes after I put in.

What a place for fishing!

Didn't shoot any new video yesterday, but  the video I shot a couple weeks back shows you what it's like out there:  http://youtu.be/d1UWDo8Y2Ic

Black Creek disappointment

Drove a long way yesterday to Black Creek in southern Miami-Dade looking for peacock bass.  According to an article on the Florida Wildlife Commission website peacocks are supposed to be plentiful down there.  The article also said access to the water is available via a boat ramp near a bridge that crosses the creek.  Well, the article is out of date.  You can't reach the boat ramp because the gravel road leading to it is blocked off with a steel gate and posts meant to prevent any four-wheeled vehicles from getting back there.

When I first saw that, I thought I'd made the long trip for nothing.  But I walked around a bit and found a bank on the other side of the bridge where I might be able to slide my kayak off its trailer and down into the water.   It was about four feet from the bank down to the water, but luckily there were a couple small grassy hummocks between the top of the bank and the water and I was able to slide my boat first onto those hummocks and then the rest of the way into the creek.

I'd already seen a large fish busting the surface when I first arrived, so I was anxious to begin fishing.  I started out throwing flies toward the spot where I'd seen that fish, at the intersection of Black Creek and a smaller lateral canal.  Then I moved on to fish the bridge pilings and beyond.  It wasn't long before I saw a peacock cruising along a few feet under the surface.  I threw a popper at it but it wasn't interested.

I continued east along Black Creek, fishing the bank to my left.  There were lots of trees and overhanging brush along that side of the creek.  However, there wasn't much spatterdock or water hyacinth floating on the surface, as you often see in canals in this area.  That may be why I wasn't catching bluegill and small bass, as I often do in canals where there is lots of cover for them to hide in. There was a shelf of limestone extending out from the bank about 10-15 feet where the water was only a foot or two deep.  As I pedaled along in my Hobie I was constantly scanning that shallow water for peacocks that might be soaking up in the sun in the shallow water.  I saw a couple but what I saw a lot more of was grass carp, although it took me a bit of time to identify those 30 inch fish as such.  I'd read that snook also inhabit this creek, since it's pretty close to Biscayne Bay.  I was hoping those big fish were snook but they lacked the obvious lateral line that snook had.  When one of these fish got close to me I saw the big bronze scales that marked it as a carp.

Here and there I'd come upon a bit of submerged weeds (eelgrass -not sure what to call it) growing in the shallows just before that steep dropoff to deep water.  I tossed my fly so that it skimmed along the top of these weeds, then sank when it reached the drop-off.  I allowed it to sink well out of sight, hoping some fish down there would grab it.

Eventually I reached the water control structure that's about a mile east of the bridge where I'd put in.  I had to turn around and head back the other way.  By then I'd caught three sunfish but no peacocks at all.

I fished back to the bridge and then west of the bridge for a quarter mile or so, passing the boat ramp that no one can use.  By then I was getting a bit discouraged.  I spotted a small pod of peacocks in the shallows around some sunken tree limbs.  I got one of them to chase my fly and appear to take it in its mouth, then spit it out.  I've heard that peacocks are quite aggressive when they strike.  Not these guys.  Probably they knew I was in the vicinity and were skeptical of anything that might have come from that guy in the bright yellow kayak.

Some folks dunk shiners for peacocks, I believe.  Maybe live bait would have caught me a few yesterday.  But I want to catch fish on fly tackle, which will work for peacocks...sometimes.  Just not yesterday.  I quit around four o'clock, feeling pretty disappointed that I'd gone to so much trouble to catch a few sunfish.  Well, as I say in the video, You win some, you lose some.

Here's video I shot, if you want to get an idea of what Black Creek is like:  http://youtu.be/aGoGbSnvJM4

Just don't get there expecting to put anything other than a canoe or kayak in the water there.

Everglades bass fly fishing

Drove out to the Everglades a couple days ago.  My original intention was to fish a canal I'd read about recently in the outdoors section of one of our local newspapers.  I was skeptical that the directions given at the end of the story were accurate, because they didn't match what I saw on Google Maps.  But I figured perhaps the Google Maps image was old and perhaps no longer matched what was actually out there.  Well, Google Maps was right:  there was no right turn near the first bridge beyond the Palm Beach County line heading north on Route 27, just a gated-off water control facility and a steel guardrail that went on for miles.  I could see the canal mentioned in the article but there was no way to drive along it for two miles until you reached the boat ramp. The writer figured out how to get out there but I couldn't.

Fortunately, another canal runs along Route 27 and there are boat ramps every few miles along it. So...I made a u-turn and headed back south until I found one and slipped my kayak in the water.

It was a breezy, overcast day following a cold front.  I started off heading south down the canal with the wind pushing me along at a pretty good clip.  I quickly caught several small bass on a popper fly. After about a mile I turned around and pedaled upwind in the opposite direction.  My Hobie kayak with Mirage Drive does allow you to fish in windy conditions.  But when the wind is gusting down in your face, the bow of the kayak tends to fall off to port or starboard constantly, forcing you to put one hand on the rudder control to correct your heading.  And since you really need two hands to fly-cast, it's a bit of a struggle to lay a fly out where you think the fish are.

Fish continued to slash at my fly as I was going north but they were in one of those moods where they grab it lightly in their mouths, then drop it as soon as you pull back on the line to set the hook.

This went on for a couple hours until I felt it was time to reverse directions again and let the wind push me back toward the boat ramp.  At that point I replaced the surface popper fly I'd been using with a bright chartreuse "sqwirm worm," which is a fly angler's version of a plastic worm used by spin and bait casters.  I tossed the sqwirm toward the bank to my left, which was mostly large chunks of limestone left over from the orginal excavation of the canal.  I'd drop the sqwirm worm on a chunk of rubble, then pull it off into the water and make it slither like a tiny snake.  The bass really liked it and I hooked many of them and even managed to bring some of them to hand.  I've fished that canal many times now.  It's full of fish--largemouth bass, bluegill, mayans, longnose gar, oscars, and who knows what else.  The biggest bass I caught wasn't much more than 12 inches, so it's not a place to go for lunkers.  But if you just want action, you'll find it there.

I didn't catch a single mayan, unlike the time I was there a month ago or so.  Mayans like it sunny and hot.  Since it was cool and overcast, they may have been feeling sulky.

I fished until around 4:45.  I saw only two or three other anglers on the water all day long.  Because the canal is close to Route 27, you do hear big trucks rumbling by all day long.   I myself prefer quieter waters but the fish who live in that canal don't seem to care.

Here's a link to video I shot of the trip:  http://youtu.be/d1UWDo8Y2Ic

Knocking wood for redfish

Drove up yesterday to try my luck again along Hutchinson Island on the Indian River. Had an obstacle to get around when I first arrived at the put-in:

Some inconsiderate person blocked the path down to the water, assuming no one else would need to get down there.  I inspected the gap on the left side of this vehicle and thought I just might be able to squeeze by it with my kayak loaded on its two-wheeled cart.  Fortunately, I made it.

Once out on the water I saw that it was really a remarkable day.  Almost no wind at all, cloudless sky, low humidity.  Couldn't ask for better weather conditions.

I began by trolling a Mirrodine lure behind my kayak up to where Blind Creek begins to narrow.  I made sure to work over a mangrove point from which a snook darted out last week to snatch that very same lure.  Well, that fish wasn't in residence yesterday.

I continued on down Blind Creek out to its mouth and then beyond into the main Indian River.  I had no action whatsoever for the first couple hours and was beginning to think this might be another skunk of a day.  But then while casting a deceiver fly in some stained water I hooked up with my old friend Jack (Crevalle).  He was only a pound or two but I was glad to see him.

The wind picked up just a bit and so I switched back to the Mirrodine, which would be easier to toss beneath the mangrove branches.  I was casting from only about 15 feet out from these mangroves and tried hard to "knock wood" - actually hit the bowed mangrove roots with the lure.  I saw a fish flash but I thought it might have only been a mullet.  I threw the lure in that same spot a second time and something came out and swallowed it. I figured it was a snook, given that it had darted out from heavy cover and snook are known as ambush predators.  It tried to scoot back into the mangrove roots but I tightened down the drag on my reel and managed to pull the fish away from shoreline out into open water.  Fortunately, my knot and 12 lb. test line held and after a struggle I was able to bring the fish up alongside the kayak.  No snook but a redfish!

With that encouragement, I kept knocking wood for the next hour or so with my Mirrodine. I flashed another fish at one point but he didn't actually strike.

Later in the afternoon I caught a nice sheepshead in the 2-3 pound range.  By then, the tide was in and there was very little room to slide a lure between the water surface and the overhanging mangrove branches.  Throughout the afternoon I saw lots of surface action and tried to entice a strike with a popper fly.  But unlike last week, no ladyfish rose to smack it.

I fished until around 4:30.  Whoever had blocked the path to the water with his vehicle had left for the day, so I had no trouble getting back up the path to my car.

Here's some video I shot yesterday:  http://youtu.be/_nrNIJ3JNGE

Snook and ladyfish

Spent most of yesterday fishing the Indian River west of Hutchinson Island.  Hadn't been there in six or seven weeks.  I had made an attempt to fish there last week but had a minor traffic accident on the drive north and never managed to get the kayak in the water. The trip yesterday went more smoothly.

Arrived a little before eleven at high tide.  I trolled the Mirrodine along the mangrove shoreline on Blind Creek.  A snook darted out from behind one of the mangroves and snatched my lure after I'd only been out there a few minutes.

An hour later I'd had no more action and switched to a fly rod and cast various flies toward the mangroves where Blind Creek narrows before emptying into the Indian River. At one point a snook I'd estimate at between 25 and 30 inches cruised down the center of Blind Creek.  I saw it coming and tried to toss my fly in its path but I was probably a bit late.

Nothing else was interested in the flies I was casting either, so once I got out beyond the mouth of Blind Creek I went back to spinning tackle for a while.  I tried drifting a DOA shrimp under a float across the flat at the mouth of Blind Creek.  It got pretty windy out there.  I was seeing a lot of surface action.  I assumed it was mullet but thought I'd try a popper on my fly rod for a bit, just in case other fish were mixed in with the mullet. I've heard that trout sometimes will show on the surface.  Not long after I switched to the fly rod, something boiled up on my popper but missed it. Then something struck and the fight was on.  It jumped several times.  It looked to be 15 to 20 inches and silvery.  A small tarpon?  By the time I got it close to my kayak, a few minutes later, I had figured out it was a ladyfish.  I've caught them before but they were about half the size of this one and hadn't given much of a fight.

By the time I released the ladyfish, I had drifted close to one of the arms that stick out from the mouth of Blind Creek.  There was a commotion beneath some mangroves overhanging the water.  I saw a bubble line and as I got closer noticed that it was a plume of water draining out from a culvert further back in the mangroves.  I worked my popper around the edges of this plume and could see shapes swimming around in it.  Something rather chunky--a redfish?--came up and smacked the popper.  But as often happens when I see a fish a moment before it attacks a fly, I struck back too soon and ripped the hook from its mouth.  I hung around there a few minutes, trying to interest whatever else might be back there in my popper.  Around this time I noticed a pair of dolphins cruising about fifty yards offshore.  I figured that was it for this spot and decided to move back into Blind Creek.

The tide was moving out by then and I thought I might find more fish hanging around the various culverts along the shoreline of Blind Creek, as water from the mosquito control ponds emptied out of them.  However, none of the culverts showed much of an outflow.  I worked the shorelines with the Mirrodine again back to where I'd launched my kayak earlier.  I arrived there around four o'clock and I wasn't quite ready to call it a day. There's a tide pond on the east side of A1A that might hold fish.  I spent about half an hour there. I switched back to a popper for a few minutes and just before I passed under the A1A bridge on my way back to the launch point, something boiled up on it. Another ladyfish?

All in all, not a bad day.  I've heard ladyfish are fun to catch.  I'd be happy to tangle with them all day if the bigger ones are like the one I caught yesterday. Too bad I didn't recognize what I was seeing sooner than I did.  Well, next time.

Here's some video I shot of the trip:


http://youtu.be/-MwH2TwL6w0

Planning to attend the kayak fishing seminar up in Stuart tomorrow.   Looking forward to meeting some fellow kayak anglers in the area.

My audiobook Trusting The River is available on audible.com. Audible has just sent me 25 free downloads for the entire audiobook which I am free to give to anyone interested.  Contact me via the email in my profile if you would like to download this audiobook at no cost.

Grass carp

Explored a new-to-me canal yesterday along the Palm Beach County/Broward line.  I believe it's called the Hillsboro Canal.  I had read some information about it on the Florida Wildlife Commission website that indicated this canal holds the usual bass and panfish but also possibly some snook and tarpon.

The boat ramp I used to put my kayak in the water is part of a county park.  Very nice boat ramp - gradual decline and soft sand at the bottom of it.  The whole park was quite nice.  The canal is tree-lined along one bank, which gave it a more arboreal feel than Pioneer Canal park in Boynton Beach and the canals I've explored further south in Broward County.  When I arrived, there was a bit of current moving from west to east.  I imagine the South Florida Water Management District was shifting water from the Everglades to the ocean.

I started off throwing a tiny green popper close to the wooded shoreline, trying to slide it under overhanging branches wherever possible.  The canal seemed fairly deep along that shoreline beneath the trees and I let my sink-tip fly line pull the popper down several feet before I'd  cast again.  After half an hour or so the fish weren't responding, so I put on a larger popper that would make a bigger commotion in the water and possibly attract fish lurking around the small boat docks I passed from time to time.  This didn't work either, so I tried a clouser minnow, which has enough weight to get it down nine or ten feet.  I finally did hook a fat bluegill on the clouser.  But there was so much floating weed in the canal that I had to remove several strands of it after almost every cast I made.

As I was pedaling east with the current I passed over a school of enormous grass carp. Some of then had to be in the twenty pound range.  They'd be quite a challenge to catch on a fly rod.  I know some anglers do target this species with specialized techniques.  As their name implies, grass carp are vegetarians and wouldn't be interested in anything I happened to have in my flybox.

After a while I went back to the tiny green popper (TGP), as its small hook sometimes manages to avoid snaring some of that floating grass.  I caught another bluegill or two and a couple small largemouth bass.

Not long before I called it quits for the day I witnessed a phenomenon that a south Florida fishing guide once told me about.  He said that around this tax season each April, ficus trees drop berries in the canals and grass carp will position themselves right below the branches to snatch these windfalls as they hit the water.  When I fished with this guide, Steve Kantner, we were about a month too early for ficus trees to be dropping their berries.  If I remember correctly, we tried to entice some grass carp anyway with a fly that looked somewhat like a red cherry made out of some kind of fabric.  I found it difficult to cast and caught no grass carp that day; all I did was spook the few that we saw.

Yesterday I wished I had one of those flies with me.  Every minute or so, when there was a bit of a breeze, half a dozen or so berries from this ficus tree would drop into the water and the grass carp would swirl beneath them.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to pull the camera out of my shirt pocket and film this.  I did take some humdrum video of what happened earlier in the trip.  It can be seen at:

http://youtu.be/zx7e2_bOwOg

revised video for "In search of peacocks."

I discovered that not all the video I shot yesterday uploaded to youtube from my last post.  The following should have all the video:

http://youtu.be/qothBKwjwII

In search of peacock bass

Fished the canals north of Lake Ida yesterday in search of peacock bass.  I know they're up there - I caught some a couple weeks ago.  Since the water temperature is getting warmer, I've been hoping it would make the peacocks more active, since they like the water hot and sun-shiny.  I've been having some success of late with a chartreuse "sqwirm-worm" fly.  I can't imagine it looks like anything in the water that these fish would actually eat, but they can definitely see it and the way it moves seems to trigger strikes.  I was hoping I'd find peacocks in the bright shallows close to shore and around boat docks in the canals where I was fishing.

First fish I caught was a bluegill.  A little later I hit a spot where some largemouth bass were lurking and caught a couple of those.  I worked my way down the canal toward Lake Ida.  There's a lateral canal I've found that makes a loop away from the main canal and then rejoins it a bit to the south, after passing through a residential neighborhood.  You'll know you've found it if two dogs run down to the seawall to give you a piece of their mind.  One of these looks to be a cross between a Rottweiler and a Bull Mastiff. Apparently neither likes to swim, which is lucky for me, so they just stand there barking their heads off as you pass by about 20 feet away.  No doubt there are lots of fish in that loop canal but it's pretty small and I can't seem to avoid spooking fish long before I reach them.  I did manage to catch one oscar as I was passing beneath a bridge just before re-joining the main canal.

I had been fighting the wind coming up from the south on the main canal on the way down to to the lateral.  That meant I had the wind behind me going north.  I was able to keep my kayak pointed to the shoreline as the wind pushed me along, which made for good casting.  I caught several more largemouth this way, including this one.  I'd estimate it at about 18 inches, the biggest fish I've caught so far on the sqwirm worm.

Not long before I quit for the day I hooked a fish that felt like it might be a peacock, as it was quite strong and refused to jump, as a largemouth bass would have, until the very end, when I had it close to my kayak.  Unfortunately, when it jumped it was somewhat behind my right shoulder and I only caught the briefest glimpse of it.  It had coloration that suggested it could be a peacock but I can't say for sure that it was.



Some video I shot can be seen here:

http://youtu.be/jsLOSRdC1Sk

Everglades canal fishing

I drove south yesterday to one of the canals that runs through the Everglades not far from Alligator Alley.  The canals down there are not unlike the one at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Boynton Beach.  They're freshwater and hold lots of largemouth bass but in my experience have a lot more exotics, such as mayan cichlids and oscars.  Since I've been having pretty good success of late with the fly rod, I thought it might be fun to try out the canal that parallels  Route 27 as it vectors north from Alligator Alley.

I started out throwing a size 4 popper but quickly found that although the fish would attack it, they couldn't swallow it.  So I switched to a size 6 (actually one size smaller than a 4) and started bringing fish to the kayak.  What I discovered, though, is that these fish wanted a much quicker, more aggressive retrieve than I had been giving them.  The shallows of that canal are just full of fish between six and ten inches long.  It may be that there is so much competition for food, that each fish must quickly grab something that moves and looks like food before another fish sees it.  The rapid, splashing retrieve I started to use must have triggered their desire to beat out their competition for a meal.

I worked my way north along the shoreline of the canal, switching from one side to the other as the wind began to pick up a bit.  The main canal has laterals coming off it every quarter mile or so and I fished these as well.  By around noon I had caught a dozen or so fish - a combination of largemouth bass, mayan cichlids, bluegill and another exotic species called an oscar, which is similar in size and fighting ability to a mayan but is darker, slimier and has an "eye" marking on its tail.

Although I was catching fish on the surface popper, I wanted to try out the chartreuse and olive "sqwirm worm" that I've been tying of late.  Once I attached one of those to my leader, the fishing got even better.  I would cast it to the edge of the spatterdock pads, let it sink down a couple feet and then retrieve it with short, quick strips of the fly line.  I began hooking fish on this sqwirm worm every 3-4 casts.  I lost track of how many fish I brought to the boat.  I'd estimate around 40, by the time I quit fishing, around 4 o'clock. None of the bass I caught exceeded 12 inches.  Some anglers would be frustrated by all those "dinks" I was catching.  Myself, I just enjoyed the action, especially when it was produced by a fly I had tied myself.

No video this time.  I brought my camera but realized once I was out on the water that I had neglected to insert the battery before I left home, which I had left plugged into the re-charger.  I tried a few minutes with my iPhone but none of the video was worth preserving.  Here's a mayan I caught with the sqwirm worm:

Fishing the "sqwirm worm" fly

Spent some time this morning at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Reserve.  It's been six weeks or so since I've been there and figured it was time for another visit.  I planned to try out some "sqwirm worm" flies that I've been tying of late.  I found instructions for tying this fly on the internet:  http://www.laflyfish.com/flies/sqwirm-worm.php   For a long time now I've been looking for a fly that would act in the water the way a plastic worm does.  Plastic worms are deadly on largemouth bass using spinning equipment  but are too heavy to fling with a fly rod.  I bought the materials for tying these sqwirm worms and managed to produce a dozen or so.  Mine are pretty rough, as I don't have access to my fly tying tools where I happen to be right now.  I had to tie these flies without a vise to hold the hook, or a bobbin to hold the thread or even a good pair of scissors.  Nevertheless, I managed to produce some flies that might work on some gullible bass.

When I arrived at Lox this morning, the wind was already gusting in from the northwest.  I started out throwing a plastic worm with spinning tackle just to gauge how active the fish would be.  On my first cast a fish grabbed the plastic worm, then let it go when I began to reel it in.  This fish was probably a bluegill or warmouth.  These fish can suck in one end of a plastic worm but have mouths too small to swallow the hook that the worm is attached to.  So I quickly switched to one of my fly rods, which was rigged with a tiny green popper.  The fish that went after the much bigger plastic worm weren't interested in that small fly.  I switched to a heavier fly rod and a much bigger popper.  I cast that popper right up against the water hyacinth floating up against the bank.  Pretty soon some bass started hitting it.  I caught about half a dozen, which encouraged me to give the sqwirm worm a try.  These things don't float on the surface the way a popper does. They begin to sink immediately but if you start retrieving the line in short jerks you can make it look like a tiny snake.  Before long, a couple bass went after the sqwirm worm, just as they had the larger popper.

Around 12:30 I turned around and allowed the wind to push my kayak back south along the canal toward to the boat launch where I'd put in earlier.  I let the sqwirm worm trail behind the boat and caught several more fish, including a bluegill, over the next half hour or so.

We had another cold front come through last night and the air was much cooler and drier this morning.  This usually turns off the fishing.  Not today, though.  Biggest fish I caught was around 12 inches but I had pretty good action most of the time I was out there.  Best part was catching fish on a fly I had tied myself.

Video from this morning's trip can be seen at:

http://youtu.be/jI0OLq6gTtI

Peacock bass on fly rod in Palm Beach County

Took a short drive up to Boynton Beach today to try the canal system north of Lake Ida.  I did very well in this spot four weeks ago, also when we were in the "new moon" period. Some anglers swear fresh water fish are affected by the moon cycles just as salt water fish are.  I've been somewhat skeptical, myself, since there are no tides in fresh water to cause lakes, rivers and streams to rise and fall, which in turn causes bait fish and predator fish to move from one location to another.  However, I did so well a month ago that I wanted to see if I could repeat that experience today.

The sky was pretty overcast when I arrived at the boat ramp.  Another front is headed our way, so in addition to the clouds, I also was dealing with pretty strong winds out in front of the approaching weather.   I'd say today the wind was blowing between 20 and 25 mph, coming from the east-southeast.  My best tactic was to hug the south bank of the canal I was on, allowing the bank itself and the houses built above it to block the wind a bit.  I started out throwing a chartreuse and white clouser-type fly.  After an hour of no action at all I switched to the tiny green popper fly that's caught so many fish for me lately. That didn't produce either, for a bit, but then something took it hard and began pulling line off of my reel.  Since the fish didn't surface, I was pretty sure it wasn't a largemouth bass.  It could have been a mayan cichlid.  But if it was, it would have to be a sizable one. When I finally pulled the fish to the surface I saw that it was a peacock bass.  Peacock bass are not related at all to largemouth bass; in fact, I believe they're a kind of cichlid, like the mayans, though they grow quite a bit bigger.  The one I caught was about 12 inches, maybe a pound or two.

Peacocks are an exotic species here in south Florida, first stocked in canals in the Miami area back in the 1980s.  They've since migrated northward, as far as central Palm Beach county, although almost all in this region were killed off several years ago by an intense cold spell.   Peacocks are native to the Amazon basin in South America and can't tolerate water much below 60 degrees.  I've been hoping for a while that they would make a comeback here in Palm Beach County.  Now I've got confirmation that they have.  This one may only be a couple years old, born after the cold snap of 2010.

A little while later, I caught a second peacock, a little smaller than the first.  By then, the clouds had dissipated and I had full sun, although the wind seemed only to be getting stronger.  As often happens in this location, the action improved as the day grew warmer. Between noon and one-thirty I caught a nice largemouth bass and quite a few bluegill. So all in all, it was a pretty good morning.  Maybe there's something to those lunar cycles in fresh water after all!

Urban canals in Broward County

Since I haven't been doing particularly well in salt water so far this year, I've decided to explore more of the fresh water opportunities here in south Florida.  Although I'd be happy to catch big redfish, snook, tarpon and sea trout in salt water, that isn't happening for me.  Fresh water species like largemouth bass, bluegill, Mayan cichlids, snakeheads and peacock bass are plentiful in this area.  The lakes, ponds and canals are closer to me than salt water venues to the north and south, so at least for the time being it makes sense to stick close to home, where I tend to have pretty good luck. Also, fresh water fish that I catch on a fly rod give me just as much of a battle as larger salt water species that I occasionally hook on spinning tackle.

Today I spent the morning pedaling around some canals in western Broward county.  I launched at a small county park onto a wide east-west canal.  Unfortunately, there was a brisk easterly wind that stirred up some small rollers on the canal.  It wasn't going to much fun fishing in those conditions, so I quickly ducked down a side canal that vectored north-south.  I got immediate relief from the wind, thanks to the trees and houses that lined both banks and at least partially diverted the wind.  We had another cold front come through a couple days ago, which dropped our evening temperatures down into the forties.  The water temperature today in the canal where I was fishing was 74 degrees, which was probably down two to three degrees from what it would have been before the front.  I figured that would affect the bite today, and it did.  I caught one bluegill and two small bass in about three hours of fishing.   That's pretty slow action, compared to what I've gotten used to.

I passed a couple fellow kayakers who'd done somewhat better than I was.  They looked to be throwing chartreuse spinner baits, which are much bigger and make much more commotion in the water than the small flies I was throwing.  For a time, I switched to spinning tackle myself and my old stand-by, the plastic worm.  The two small bass I caught came on that rig.

Some of the canals I was on today are quite narrow and the backyards of homeowners back right up to the water.  So you're not exactly out in the wilderness.  I guess those folks must get used to people floating right by their back porches and lawn chairs. Several dogs came out to bark at me.  All except one were fenced in.  The one that wasn't was just about the biggest, meanest looking pit bull I've ever seen.  He came right down to the edge of the water.  Thinking about it now, I might have turned my video camera on him. But at the time, I just pedaled on by, pretending nonchalance.

I did pass over a couple of enormous carp.  They were probably grass carp and in the 10-15 pound range.  It would be something to hook one of those on a fly rod.  Not sure what kind of fly you'd use on them, though.

By about 12:30 I could see that the action probably wasn't going to improve, as the sky was mostly overcast and the sun wasn't going to have a chance to warm up the water.  I got back to the boat ramp around one o'clock and headed home.

Here's a link to the video I shot this morning:  http://youtu.be/cPIsz5oe9Sk

Two of my books are now available as ebooks on Amazon.com:  TRUSTING THE RIVER and THE FLAME AT THE EDGE OF THE FOREST.  The first one is about fishing, the second is a collection of original tales.  I've recorded an audio version of TRUSTING THE RIVER for audible.com.  I myself like to listen to podcasts and audio books on my drives to fishing location.  I thought fellow anglers might be interested in listening to fishing stories as they drive as I do.

Here's a link to the audio book:

http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_mn_at_ano_tseft__galileo?advsearchKeywords=trusting+the+river&x=0&y=0

Last visit to the cypress swamp

I haven't posted in a while because the fishing action has been somewhat less than stellar, especially in the salt.

I hadn't been up to Riverbend Park near Jupiter in a few weeks, so headed there yesterday.  I wanted to try a section of the cypress swamp I haven't fished in years, before I discovered how good the action can be on and around Cowpen Lake.

I went looking for a spot called West Lake and found it pretty easily.  My memory of it from my first visit several years ago was that it was rather shallow, with excellent water quality.   I remember not spending much time there fishing because the shallowness and water clarity showed me there weren't all that many fish swimming around in it.

Well, my memory turned out to be pretty good.  It's a lovely area, peaceful and full of wildlife of various kinds.  I did spot lots of small bluegill but saw no evidence of larger bass.  They may well have been there, but to find them you'd have to be there at dawn and dusk.  Since Riverbend doesn't open until dawn and closes at dusk, that's not going to happen.

After paddling around West Lake for an hour or so without much action, I headed over to Cowpen. The action was pretty good there until the early afternoon.  I caught nothing huge but was pulling in a number of bluegill, smaller bass and even a crappie, which I didn't realize inhabited that region.  For a while I switched from a micro popper to a much larger one, which might attract some of the two and three pound bass that I've caught in Cowpen.  I did get a couple of strikes.  I remember one cast toward a cluster of lily pads away from the shoreline that resulted in a nice bass zooming up toward the popper, missing it on the first try, then pursuing it a second time, only to miss it a second time as well.

By around 3 o'clock my arm and shoulder were getting weary from casting.   And since the action had slowed down quite a bit, I decided to move again, this time to the main Loxahatchee Canal.

Usually around this time of year, the amount of water in the sloughs that lead from the main Loxahatchee to the cypress swam becomes an issue.  By mid-March we're into the dry season of the year and the water level in the sloughs drops to the point that it becomes hard to paddle (or pedal) a kayak through them.  This year, there's actually still plenty of water in the sloughs, thanks to a wet rainy season in 2013 and a massive storm we had back in January.  However, I discovered yesterday that skeins of wooly aquatic weeds are rapidly growing up through the water column of the sloughs and choking the passageways.  It was a struggle to paddle back to the main Canal from Cowpen.  In a week or two, they will be impassable, even though they may contain sufficient depth to float a kayak.  These weeds, which I think are a form of algae, may die off again in the early fall.  I do know that they weren't there this past November, when I began making trips again to the cypress swamp area.  At any rate, yesterday was probably my last visit to Cowpen Lake for a while.

I spent the final hour of the trip on the main Canal.  I pedaled up past the wooden bridge, which marks the park's boundary, and then allowed the current to pull me downstream for a half mile or so.  I was back to throwing a micro popper by that point and allowing it to sink down a few feet below the surface.  But nothing came up from the depths for a closer look.

I've posted video about yesterday's trip on youtube:

http://youtu.be/1vUVJWa7wr8

Since I've announced it on my Facebook page, I might as well here as well.  I've just published another e-book on amazon.com.  This one has nothing to do with fishing at all.  It's called THE FLAME AT THE EDGE OF THE FOREST:  TALES FOR YOUNG AND OLD.  It's an integrated collection of original fairy tales written in the spirit of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.  For the next few days it's available as a free download:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Flame-At-Edge-Forest-ebook/dp/B00IW87L9U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395328109&sr=8-1&keywords=flame+at+the+edge+of+the+forest

Excellent afternoon

About six weeks ago I drove to a freshwater canal a little north of here the day after a massive rainstorm.  This wasn't a very smart move, as the canal had flooded up over its banks and inundated the surrounding neighborhood.  I wasn't able to reach the canal at all; in fact, I could have used my kayak in some of the nearby streets, which were full of water.

I went back to this canal yesterday and found all had returned to normal.  The boat ramp is in a quiet neighborhood park and doesn't seem to get very much use - or at least it hasn't when I've been there in the past.  The setting isn't particularly scenic.  One shoreline has back yards with wooden boat docks, the other has some commercial properties.  And I95 is just a few hundred yards to the east. Nevertheless, I've caught some nice fish there, including a couple of peacock bass, which are trying to make a comeback after being killed off by cold weather a few years ago.  In the past, I've always fished this spot in the morning, although it has seemed to me that the action got better as the sun rose higher in the sky.  Yesterday morning was cool and overcast, after a bit of rain the night before, so I decided to wait until after lunch to launch my kayak.

I was in the water and fishing by two o'clock.  I've had good luck recently using my seven weight flyrod, a tiny chartreuse popper fly and a sink tip line.  So that's what I started with.

A good breeze was blowing down the canal from the west and I pedaled in that direction. A quarter mile from the boat launch the canal intersects another canal, which runs north/south.  Once I reached that intersection, I let the wind blow my kayak slowly to the east, back toward the boat ramp.  There's a line of submerged weeds a few feet from the shoreline and I cast my popper close to the weeds and let the sink tip line pull it down a few feet once it cleared the weed line.  Within the first ten minutes I had brought to the boat two sunfish and a mayan cichlid, another of south Florida's exotic species of fish.

That action pretty much continued throughout the rest of the afternoon.  I worked both shorelines of the east/west canal and also spent some time on the larger, north/south canal, where I saw quite a large fish come up and take something off the surface.  I didn't get a good enough look at it to identify it.  I'm hoping it was a peacock bass.  The peacocks I've caught in that area in the past year or so have been on the small size.  If what I saw yesterday was a peacock, that would be very encouraging indeed.

I lost what would have been the biggest fish of the day when it came "unbuttoned" while I was dragging it up to the surface after an extended fight.  I never managed to get a look at it, so I can't say what it was.  The biggest fish I did get into the boat was a largemouth bass that was around 15-16 inches.  There are bigger fish than that in those waters but when I'm pulling in fish after fish on a fly rod using a surface fly, I'm not gonna complain that none were monsters.

I headed back to the boat ramp around 5:30.  There was caution tape across one of the two ramps and as I drew closer I saw that a boat lay submerged and upside down just off the end of the ramp.   That was definitely not there when I first put in at two o'clock. Apparently, someone had had a disaster of a boat launch since I had pedaled away from the area.  Two young men were launching wave runners from the other ramp.  I managed to get my kayak up and over the submerged boat and onto my trailer. The wave runner guys meanwhile were gunning their engines out in the canal, creating huge waves that they then ran up and over, as they circled around and around like they were practicing for a stunt wave-runner team.  Every fish for a mile in either direction would have been freaked by the roar of their engines and the turbulence they were creating.  I'm just glad I came in off the water before the wave-runner guys got out onto it.

Here's a link to the video I shot:   http://youtu.be/UjXt9DpPk2g  Sorry for the extended view of my bare legs as I pedaled my kayak and set the scene at the beginning.  I'll try to avoid that in the future.