Florida Road Trip 2013 (Day 3)

Waking up at my uncle's house, we were conveniently located within 5 minutes drive to our first fishing location. This was a set of canals where Cobra Snakehead had been established. However, they were not very cooperating in winter months last year...and they were not cooperating this winter either. Ben and Michael had one hit each that did not result in a hook up. They didn't feel it was worth the time and effort to continue on the hunt, so we decided to end the session early.

By 11:30pm, we arrive at another canal further south just to see Martini with a bent rod. We arrived in time just to net a nice Grass Carp for Martini.

There were Blacktail Cichlid in this canal, but once the small school of cichlid saw us coming, they left the area. We tried for a while to fish blindly under a float. At one point, my float dipped down slowly and we thought it might be the right kind...but we found a turtle at the end of the line. I didn't know turtles could run so fast to launch itself off the dock. It was very comical.

We fished another spot further down the canal. Ben might have hooked and lost a Blacktail Cichlid, but without landing the fish, it was hard to say for certain. After spending 2 hours on this canal, it was time to fish another canal for another species.

I really wanted to catch a Hornet Tilapia on this trip, especially when Martini had a really good spot to find them. While Michael and Ben both caught their lifer Hornet Tilapia, I was plagued by bluegills competing for my bait and all I had to show after an hour of fishing were two 9" bluegills. At least I now know where to find the Hornets.

It was about 4pm when we arrived at our 4th fishing spot of the day. This was a set of canal on a particular university campus. The water was brackish and there was an interesting mix of species. We saw Spotted Tilapia, Mayan Cichlid and even a non-cooperative Blacktail Tilapia (I tried to get it to bite). Furthermore, there were Striped Mojarra, Mangrove Snapper, Jack Crevalle and even a Common Snook! The one species that attracted my attention was the Striped Mojarra. We could see the school swimming around. I've never had trouble catching mojarra species, but these fish were very wary. Finally I figured out that the Mojarra in the depths of the canal were much less wary. In no time, a freelined chunk of shrimp tail nabbed another lifer!

Striped Mojarra (Eugerres plumieri) - Species #363

Next in my sight was the Crested Goby. Ben had already caught many of them at this location already. It would have been fairly easy if it wasn't already dusk and I was stuck with my prescription sunglasses. I had left my regular glasses in the car and there was no time to get them. Luckily, I caught my Crested Goby before it was too dark to sightfish for them. It was too dark to use the photo tank on this goby...so this was the best picture I could managed.

Crested Goby (Lophogobius cyprinoides) - Species #364

Once dark, we had to be on our way toward the Florida Keys. We bid farewell to Martini. He was great fun to fish with and his knowledge on Florida species was endless. We certainly will be fishing together again in the future!

We rushed to the BassProShops in Islamorada, Fl just in time to get a pier net. Miciah was already there waiting for us. I met Miciah for the first time in May when we fished in Illinois. It was great to see him again.

We made a quick dinner stop in Marathon, FL since we hadn't had a bite since 8am in the morning. I love McDonald's pie...and this special Holiday Pie was a great custard pie!

We got a bunch of bait including squid, shrimp and frozen herring at the Winn-Dixie supermarket. You can get bait at any of the supermarket in the Keys. It was convenient since they open until 12am. Once we were set up at our bridge location, it was already 10pm. We chatted with someone who had just landed a 6' Bull Shark on the slack tide. It certainly had us excited. We quickly caught some grunts for bait and sent them out. The current was strong and the water murky for most part of the night. The wind was also relentless the whole night. This would be the pattern in the Keys for most of our trip - strong current, murky water and windy. According to one of our online friend, this was not ideal condition to fish the Keys. It was not surprisingly that our lines were silent all night. Ben, Ruoxi and Miciah went to bed early, but Michael and I stayed up until 3am checking bait. At the end, I needed at least a couple hours of sleep since we had a day of kayak fishing ahead of us.

Florida Road Trip 2013 (Day 2)

Waking up at 5:30am in the morning, we found people already setting up on our little point of sand where we fished a couple of hours ago. We quickly got out of bed and stake out some real estate and sent the bait out.

We fished with real intent the whole morning, but we only had crabs messing with our baits. Just before we pack it up at 9am, I had a good rip that made the reel sounded like a power drill going off. Unfortunately, the fish dropped the bait and left my reel with a pretty good birdnest to pick through. By 9:30am, we had to pack it in to be on our way further south.

We made a stop at around 12:30pm to fish a residential canal for African Jewelfish. They were supposed to be around in the shallows near weeds. Perhaps the colder winter water sent them to other areas of the canal. We didn't see any or had any bites fishing blindly.

We left that spot for the Tamiami Canal at around 3pm. It was really tight on time as we would have less than 30 minutes to fish before sunset. In hindsight, it was a blessing.

Martini, a very accomplished fishing record holder, gave us the intel on this spot. He had caught a few Oscars and Walking Catfish in the past and that information was certainly solid. On our first casts, we were hooking Oscars on demand! We did not see one Oscar last year while fishing the Tamiami. It may have been the extremely cold weather last winter that send them hiding. This year, we found them all over the canal. A simple split shot rig with a piece of nightcrawler was all it took to catch some.

Oscar (Astronotus ocellatus) - Species #361

That picture didn't really do the fish any justice. There will be more beautiful Oscar pictures later on the trip.

It was a blessing to fish at this spot after sundown because the Walking Catfish came out to play. We later learned that these catfish hide during the day and it would be very difficult catching them in the day. At night, they littered the bottom of the canal! They were very shy of bright light and will scatter away from the light. We found them with the spotlight, switched the light off, and then placed the bait in the area while the fish returned to locate the bait. We realized we needed to give the fish a little time to take the bait into their mouth...but they were not difficult to catch at all.

Philippine Catfish aka Walking Catfish (Clarias batrachus) - Species #362

It was a pretty long night of fishing and almost an entire day of futility. We felt pretty good ending the day with 2 new species before leaving for Coral Springs.

Florida Road Trip 2013 (Day 1)

There is always unfinished business whenever and wherever you fished. Fish that were lost, fish that refused to bite, fish that you just couldn't find...they tend to haunt dreams. There was a lot of unfinished business in Florida. While in the Keys last year, we were busted off twice rather rapidly by "sharks" on 40lb mono. After switching to wire, we didn't get a bite for the rest of the night. The untouched 180lb wire leader and 10/0 circle hook hung from the rear view mirror for all of 2013 as a reminder that there was a score to settle...

The planning for this trip started as soon as we left Florida in January 2013. Michael and I both bought an annual non-resident licenses (saltwater + freshwater) so we had the opportunity to fish Florida again in December 2013 to maximize the use of our licenses. Sometime in the summer, we roped in Ben and his girlfriend Ruoxi to join our adventure for a week, and later Miciah also jumped onto our itinerary in the Keys. With 4 serious species hunter in the mix, this would be a wild ride!

We left Toronto on the night of Wednesday December 11. As we crossed the US border, our patrol personnel interrogated us pretty harshly. He wanted to see our trunk...but he just waved us through after taking just one look. I didn't think he wanted to tear this apart at 11pm. Thank God he didn't find the 10lbs of frozen mackerel and sardines we brought to Florida to use as bait!

We arrived in Florida on Friday December 13, 2013. Thanks to a hot tip from Ryan (who you will be introduced later), we were hoping to arrive in Tampa area to fish one of the spot that had recently produced Spanish Mackerel. Timing is of the essence since falling water temperature could quickly push these fish out of the area into more southerly water.

Ryan mentioned that there were a lot of Planehead Filefish around the pilings in the area. Spottail Pinfish were also abundant. Using #14 sabiki rig with squid tentacle, I quickly added the first 2 new species on this trip!

Planehead Filefish (Stephanolepis hispidus) - Species #357

Spottail Seabream aka Spottail Pinfish (Diplodus holbrookii) - Species #358

Now...there is a related species called the Silver Porgy that looks pretty much exactly like the Spottail Pinfish. I still don't know exactly how to tell them apart. But for all intents and purposes, I'll just consider this one a Spottail Pinfish.

I also caught an unexpected new species on the sabiki, the Silver Jenny...although this picture was pretty poor with a water smudge on the lens. I would catch more of them later in the Keys and there will be a better picture.

Jenny Mojarra aka Silver Jenny (Eucinostomus gula) - Species #359

While I was adding these lifers, people on the other side of the channel caught a couple of Spanish Mackerel. Michael went with a spoon while I tied on a Gotcha...and got ripped on the FIRST CAST! I've been trying to catch a Spanish Mackerel for 4 years whenever I fished in the Central Western Atlantic areas. I've had fish hit twice but missed the hook. I've missed the run by just one day or even just a couple of hours. It felt terrific to finally land one!

Atlantic Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus) - Species #360

After hitting all our targets within the short 2 hour stop, we were ready to hit our evening spot. But before we can get fishing, we needed some PVC rod holders...and so we were cutting PVC at a Home Depot parking lot in Florida LOL.

We got to our evening spot just after dark. We were fishing the outflow of one of the many power plants in the Tampa area. Apparently, sharks are attracted to the warm water discharge as water temperature drops in the winter. This year, the water had remained warm so we were quite anxious about the potential of our location. But that was really the least of our worries.

We kept the two Spanish Mackerel for bait since they were one of the best shark bait in the area. Unfortunately, we were being robbed by crabs all night whenever we tried to place a bait on the bottom. Finally, we started deploying baits on balloon rigs. The wind and current was in our favour, but it was still a lot drift off the beach to place the bait into deeper waters.

While we waited, we were treated to a glorious Geminid meteor shower! I must have spotted a dozen Geminids that night. They were very bright, but unfortunately the sparse showing created a real challenge to photograph them. I know from experience that it would be a waste of memory and battery power shooting without a bulb feature on my camera.

Michael finally had a run at around 12am. We were disappointed to see a baby Blacktip Shark snagged outside of the lower jaw. The hook was far enough from the mouth to question whether it was legit. Michael decided not to count it.

An hour later, my bait was picked up and had a good run until the fish dropped it. We kept out bait fresh and kept sending bait out but by 3am, the lack of action made us realized we had been on the road since 7am the morning prior and we had no sleep since. We set up the tent for a quick nap and hoped to find something more promising in the morning.