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
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
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
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
Saturday, March 1, 2014
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Small pond popper fishing
Visited another small pond yesterday across the road from the pond where I caught some green sunfish on my flyrod a week ago or so. This second pond is a bit smaller and I wanted to see what it had to offer.
Once I got out in the water in my kayak, I realized I had strung up my fly rod with the wrong spool of line. Normally with poppers I would use a floating line but the line I discovered on the reel once I got out on the water was a sink tip, which would drag the popper down below the surface after a few seconds. Well, I decided to go with the sink tip for a little while and see what happened. Turns out, it worked pretty well. A couple of largemouth bass came up and smacked the tiny popper I was using just after it splashed on the surface. Then other fish, including some green sunfish, attacked it once it had sunk down below the surface a few feet. So the sink tip line actually worked out pretty well.
This pond is quite small. In fact, I circumnavigated the whole thing three or four times in the course of the morning. Nights have been cool lately, so the water temperature in the pond was 70 degrees. Had it been in the upper 70s, maybe some of the larger bass would have come to the surface to check out my popper. All in all, though, it was a good morning.
Here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/barMEvcqNZI I shot it with my iPhone, instead of my camera. At one point I held the phone upright instead of sideways, which is why the image goes from "landscape" to "portrait" and then back again.
Once I got out in the water in my kayak, I realized I had strung up my fly rod with the wrong spool of line. Normally with poppers I would use a floating line but the line I discovered on the reel once I got out on the water was a sink tip, which would drag the popper down below the surface after a few seconds. Well, I decided to go with the sink tip for a little while and see what happened. Turns out, it worked pretty well. A couple of largemouth bass came up and smacked the tiny popper I was using just after it splashed on the surface. Then other fish, including some green sunfish, attacked it once it had sunk down below the surface a few feet. So the sink tip line actually worked out pretty well.
This pond is quite small. In fact, I circumnavigated the whole thing three or four times in the course of the morning. Nights have been cool lately, so the water temperature in the pond was 70 degrees. Had it been in the upper 70s, maybe some of the larger bass would have come to the surface to check out my popper. All in all, though, it was a good morning.
Here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/barMEvcqNZI I shot it with my iPhone, instead of my camera. At one point I held the phone upright instead of sideways, which is why the image goes from "landscape" to "portrait" and then back again.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Indian River redux
We had a pretty strong cold front come through Wednesday night and all day Thursday. But the forecast for Friday was sunny, if a bit cool. Usually following a cold front you get a strong north wind coming down the Indian River that can make things "sporty," as they say, out on the water. That wasn't the case yesterday. Even out in open water, there wasn't much of a breeze. There was 100 percent sunshine all day. And with the temperatures in the high 60s, it was quite pleasant out there.
Because of the drop in air and water temperature, I figured the fishing wouldn't be too great. I have two water thermometers; one registered the water temperature at around 70, the other at 65. Can't explain the discrepancy of those two readings but the water was definitely on the cool side.
High tide was around 10:30. And since there was a full moon last night, the water level was way up in the mangroves when I launched my kayak. By mid-afternoon there was a strong outflow from the creek where I spent much of the day. At the Loxahatchee River in Jonathan Dickinson Park, that amount of current often makes the fish active. Not so yesterday. I did manage a very nice sea trout that hit a soft plastic mullet imitation. This happened around 12:30. Later I hooked a smaller fish of some kind that came off before I could pull it up close and identify it. Generally, it was a pretty slow day for fishing, even if the weather was great for being out there in a kayak.
At one point I noticed several pelicans following a slow-moving dolphin that was breaching every few seconds. I've not seen that behavior before. You'd think fish would scatter when that dolphin would come along. Yet the pelicans must have thought the dolphin was going to help them find food. If anyone reading this knows what was going on there, please add a comment.
The video gets a little ragged toward the end. My finger blocks the camera lens for a while. Then I forgot to push the record button for the final segment near the end of the day, so the video just stops, rather than "ends." I'll try to do better next time.
For what it's worth, here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/pYXusL7Nj50
Because of the drop in air and water temperature, I figured the fishing wouldn't be too great. I have two water thermometers; one registered the water temperature at around 70, the other at 65. Can't explain the discrepancy of those two readings but the water was definitely on the cool side.
High tide was around 10:30. And since there was a full moon last night, the water level was way up in the mangroves when I launched my kayak. By mid-afternoon there was a strong outflow from the creek where I spent much of the day. At the Loxahatchee River in Jonathan Dickinson Park, that amount of current often makes the fish active. Not so yesterday. I did manage a very nice sea trout that hit a soft plastic mullet imitation. This happened around 12:30. Later I hooked a smaller fish of some kind that came off before I could pull it up close and identify it. Generally, it was a pretty slow day for fishing, even if the weather was great for being out there in a kayak.
At one point I noticed several pelicans following a slow-moving dolphin that was breaching every few seconds. I've not seen that behavior before. You'd think fish would scatter when that dolphin would come along. Yet the pelicans must have thought the dolphin was going to help them find food. If anyone reading this knows what was going on there, please add a comment.
The video gets a little ragged toward the end. My finger blocks the camera lens for a while. Then I forgot to push the record button for the final segment near the end of the day, so the video just stops, rather than "ends." I'll try to do better next time.
For what it's worth, here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/pYXusL7Nj50
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Indian River
I haven't been back to Hutchinson Island and the Indian River since last April. I've been wanting to get back up there but the weather has been sketchy. It's about a 90 minute drive and I'll usually fish closer to home if there's rain or strong winds in the forecast. Also, I've never done particularly well there, even though the Indian River is considered one of the best shallow water fishing destinations in the country. In recent years some of the sea grass has been dying off, which has affected the fish, which like to hide in it. Quite a bit of polluted water from Lake Okeechobee has been dumped into the Indian River. But since yesterday's weather forecast looked OK, I decided to give it a try.
When I arrived, the wind was pretty calm and I was seeing mullet out in the creek where I launched my kayak. Within a few minutes a small snapper hit my Mirrodine lure. It's always good to get the skunk out of the boat as soon as possible.
I continued pedaling on out to the mouth of the creek, where it empties into the Indian River. I found a school of small snook hanging around the mangroves in that area. I had about four of them come up and attack my lure but none of them managed to stay hooked. There were some white caps further out in the Indian River proper, as the wind had picked up a bit. I didn't venture out too far beyond the creek mouth. But the area looked like it might hold some sea trout. I let the wind push me south across the mouth of the creek. Nothing was hitting the Mirrodine, so I switched to a plastic shrimp imitation on a jig head. Almost immediately a small sea trout nailed it. I stayed in that area for another hour or so. There was no further action and the wind got a bit annoying, so I headed back up the creek toward the kayak launch.
At one point I looked at my watch and saw that it was only 2:30 - too soon to call it a day. So I pedaled back out toward the creek mouth, hoping I'd given that school of snook enough rest that they might be interested in hitting one of my lures. Along the way I helped a gentleman fishing from shore save a snapper he had hooked that had gotten tangled around a branch. A few minutes later, a snook darted out from one of the mangrove pockets I'd been casting into and managed to stay hooked long enough for me to release it at the boat.
For a little while I threw a white and red deceiver fly into the mangrove pockets, hoping to entice another snook to come out and play. But by then the wind was blowing briskly up the creek from the ocean, so casting the fly rod became more trouble than it was worth, so I went back to spinning tackle for the rest of the trip.
I called it quits around four o'clock. Three not very big fish doesn't make for a great day. But I'd done better than I thought I might.
I like the area I was fishing. Maybe I'll try it again in a week or so with a different tide pattern.
Here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/pdByUDlwQxo
At one point I talk about a school of dolphins. Actually at that point I meant to say "snook." But I had just seen a couple of dolphins further out in the Indian River, so that's why I mis-spoke.
When I arrived, the wind was pretty calm and I was seeing mullet out in the creek where I launched my kayak. Within a few minutes a small snapper hit my Mirrodine lure. It's always good to get the skunk out of the boat as soon as possible.
I continued pedaling on out to the mouth of the creek, where it empties into the Indian River. I found a school of small snook hanging around the mangroves in that area. I had about four of them come up and attack my lure but none of them managed to stay hooked. There were some white caps further out in the Indian River proper, as the wind had picked up a bit. I didn't venture out too far beyond the creek mouth. But the area looked like it might hold some sea trout. I let the wind push me south across the mouth of the creek. Nothing was hitting the Mirrodine, so I switched to a plastic shrimp imitation on a jig head. Almost immediately a small sea trout nailed it. I stayed in that area for another hour or so. There was no further action and the wind got a bit annoying, so I headed back up the creek toward the kayak launch.
At one point I looked at my watch and saw that it was only 2:30 - too soon to call it a day. So I pedaled back out toward the creek mouth, hoping I'd given that school of snook enough rest that they might be interested in hitting one of my lures. Along the way I helped a gentleman fishing from shore save a snapper he had hooked that had gotten tangled around a branch. A few minutes later, a snook darted out from one of the mangrove pockets I'd been casting into and managed to stay hooked long enough for me to release it at the boat.
For a little while I threw a white and red deceiver fly into the mangrove pockets, hoping to entice another snook to come out and play. But by then the wind was blowing briskly up the creek from the ocean, so casting the fly rod became more trouble than it was worth, so I went back to spinning tackle for the rest of the trip.
I called it quits around four o'clock. Three not very big fish doesn't make for a great day. But I'd done better than I thought I might.
I like the area I was fishing. Maybe I'll try it again in a week or so with a different tide pattern.
Here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/pdByUDlwQxo
At one point I talk about a school of dolphins. Actually at that point I meant to say "snook." But I had just seen a couple of dolphins further out in the Indian River, so that's why I mis-spoke.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Micro-popping for panfish and bass in south Florida
Haven't posted in over a week. This doesn't mean I haven't been fishing. I've been out a few times but the action wasn't all that great.
Today I tried a small pond not too far from where we live. We had heavy storms yesterday afternoon and the same was predicted for today, so I thought it prudent not to take a long drive somewhere if I might get rained out.
I fish this little pond about once a year. There are some nice bass in it but the pond tends to be overlooked, as there is a larger pond just down the road. I had planned to throw plastic worms on spin tackle, at least to start out. But once I got my kayak in the water I saw how calm the water was - ideal for throwing popper flies. I tied on one of the tiny poppers that I bought in a local fly shop last week and within a couple casts I hooked what I'll call a green sunfish. Not sure what name they go by down here. You can see them in the video. If anyone knows their proper name, please feel free to add a comment to this post.
I kept picking up more of these sunnies as I slowly made my way around the pond in my kayak. I was casting toward the cattail-lined shoreline and jerking the popper three or four times. At one point something much larger than a sunfish busted out from the shoreline and blasted the popper. I thought it was a big bass but it turned out to be a snakehead, which is a long, skinny fish with a mouthful of teeth. This is only the second snakehead I've caught. The other one was in the nearby, larger pond last year and that one went after a rubber worm. Snakeheads fight very hard. There's some concern that once they get in a water system that they will pretty much out-compete every other species there and take over. Not sure how long they've been in the system of ponds I fish down here but they're not yet in danger of over-populating them.
Over the course of the morning I caught about 15 fish. I threw them all back, of course. It was a lot of fun catching them on the fly rod.
Here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/ilocYVXkCls
Today I tried a small pond not too far from where we live. We had heavy storms yesterday afternoon and the same was predicted for today, so I thought it prudent not to take a long drive somewhere if I might get rained out.
I fish this little pond about once a year. There are some nice bass in it but the pond tends to be overlooked, as there is a larger pond just down the road. I had planned to throw plastic worms on spin tackle, at least to start out. But once I got my kayak in the water I saw how calm the water was - ideal for throwing popper flies. I tied on one of the tiny poppers that I bought in a local fly shop last week and within a couple casts I hooked what I'll call a green sunfish. Not sure what name they go by down here. You can see them in the video. If anyone knows their proper name, please feel free to add a comment to this post.
I kept picking up more of these sunnies as I slowly made my way around the pond in my kayak. I was casting toward the cattail-lined shoreline and jerking the popper three or four times. At one point something much larger than a sunfish busted out from the shoreline and blasted the popper. I thought it was a big bass but it turned out to be a snakehead, which is a long, skinny fish with a mouthful of teeth. This is only the second snakehead I've caught. The other one was in the nearby, larger pond last year and that one went after a rubber worm. Snakeheads fight very hard. There's some concern that once they get in a water system that they will pretty much out-compete every other species there and take over. Not sure how long they've been in the system of ponds I fish down here but they're not yet in danger of over-populating them.
Over the course of the morning I caught about 15 fish. I threw them all back, of course. It was a lot of fun catching them on the fly rod.
Here's a link to the video: http://youtu.be/ilocYVXkCls
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