Florida Road Trip 2012/2013 [Part 1 of 2]

[MichaelAngelo]

It was many months ago when Ken (MuskieBait) cordially invited me to join him on a road trip to Florida for some hard-core fishing. Our focus on this trip would be to add as many new fish species as possible to our ever-expanding lifelists. Ken invested countless hours of research in the months leading up to our departure. This research would pay off in spades.

Did I bring enough gear?



Tampa/Orlando

Heavy snowfall delayed our departure for Orlando. A hefty 24 hours later, we arrived at our first fishing destination in Tampa. Despite the cool weather and rain, young Jack Dempsey cichlids were eager to take our worms.

New Species #1 Jack Dempsey cichlid


Unable to locate our other target for this spot, the Rio Grande cichlid, we departed for Ken's cousin's house to spend the night.

Our plans for the next day were spoiled by unusually cold weather and unpredictable rain. In the morning, Ken and I took a walk around a tiny stormwater retention pond next to his cousin's backyard. My jaw dropped when I spotted wild plecos were living in it (yes, the same algae-eaters that people keep in their aquariums)! Unfortunately for Ken and I, it seemed that these fish followed a strict diet that did not include any of the baits we had to offer. Too bad, it would have been so cool to catch a wild plecostomus!



Nevertheless, I was able to catch my second lifer of the trip out of this small pond. A nice golden shiner.

#2 Golden shiner


***


The weather finally cleared in the afternoon, allowing Ken and I to fish a pond just around the corner from his cousin's house. Within minutes of our arrival, Ken's niece started shouting in excitement. She was yelling out that she had hooked something big! And she wasn't lying! At the end of her line was the biggest black crappie I had yet to see to date! There were quite many more where that one came from. We continued to consistently catch slabs of crappie until the sun set.



I also hooked into a lifer redear sunfish.

#3 Redear sunfish:


All the while at this pond, I was fishing a second rod rigged with a chunk of fish on two treble hooks. I was using two treble hooks in the odd case that I may connect with one of our higher-priority targets of the trip: the Florida gar. I allowed the first strong take on this bait to run for over a minute before setting the hook, but the hooks did not set. This led Ken and I to believe that this was in fact a gar that had picked up my bait. Gar have long, narrow and bony snouts that are difficult to get a hook into.

I had two other strong takes on this second rod, both producing wonderful 3lb bass that are apparently "average size" for this pond according to Ken's cousin. Boy, fish sure do grow big in Florida!






Port Canaveral

While the rest of the gang paid a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre, I tried my luck with some saltwater fishing at Port Canaveral. The wind was fierce and fishing was slow. I saw a few dolphins. I was fishing about 4 rods simultaneously and managed only one lifer spot croaker after two hours of fishing.

#4 Spot croaker


I chucked out the spot croaker on my heavier rod rigged with two large circle hooks in search of a larger fish. The wind was so strong I didn't even notice this had happened until about an hour later:



Scary stuff.... exciting stuff!!!! =D

Eventually, a gentleman beside me landed a small bluefish on a small, silvery plug. I began feverishly casting a shiny spoon in search of my first bluefish and came up with this one.

#5 Bluefish


At nightfall the water came alive with small breaching fish. I had thought them to be mackerel, but floating my sabiki rig for quite some time left me with just one more bluefish.



A lifer Gafsailtop catfish decided to round off an evening of slow fishing.

#6 Gafsailtop catfish




When the rest of the gang finished up at the Kennedy Space Centre, we began our drive to visit Ken's uncle in Coral Springs.

Coral Springs

We awoke early the next morning to begin our quest for freshwater exotics. Spotted tilapia were spotted taking refuge under a dock structure and were an easy catch.

#7 Spotted tilapia


Ken was keen enough to notice a large butterfly peacock bass darting in under the dock to feed on these spotted tilapia. I used one as live bait around the dock structure, but the live bait remained untouched.

While I was fixated on catching my lifer butterfly peacock bass, wondering where all the small cichlids had buggered off to, Ken made an outstanding discovery. He had been poking around the rocks that lined the shorelines of the canal and came across the cichlid motherload! They were all hiding in the cracks in the rocks just inches from shore! The presence of larger predators must have led them to take refuge there.

#8 Mayan cichlid:


#9 Salvini cichlid:



***

Then we moved to a new spot that consisted of a series of small ponds connected by a series of culverts. I began fishing under the nearby culverts with a freelined live cichlid. Within minutes, I had a large, very dark fish nose up to my bait and then turn the other way! I shouted out to Ken, who came running over with his own freelined live cichlid. The fish eventually decided to take Ken's bait after refusing mine, probably because Ken had positioned his bait deep under the culvert where the predator felt safer. The fish ended up being Ken's lifer jaguar guapote.

I fished the rest of the area hard in search of another jaguar guapote. Despite seeing quite a few large, dark cichlids, nothing wanted by bait. I fished bread for a school of tilapia, but they did not want to bite either. There were several grass carp nosing around near shore, but they spooked easily upon approach. In search of a grass carp, I sent out two rods with bread on the bottom while I continued to poke my bait around for large cichlids. Despite fishing hard for over two hours, the fish would have none of it! I was losing focus! Not even the bass were biting.

I began chucking my trusty Rapala F7 around the culverts and lilypads. I attracted the attention of some cichlids who were chasing my lure. Finally, one of them struck! A nice Mayan cichlid:



When I was off fishing a different pond, one of my bread-baited rods began to ring. Ken picked it up for me and we ended up with a Southern brown bullhead:



We moved on to fish the canals near Ken's uncle's place in search on Cobra snakeheads, but we didn't see any. Ken pursued a lonesome Florida gar for a while, but it did not want to bite. The cooler weather the area had received in the last week must have shut down the fish.

***

The next morning we headed out to a spot to target the gorgeous Midas cichlid. Unfortunately, the area was now quite devoid of fish save for one nice butterfly peacock bass that Ken spotted. Along the way to our next fishing destination, we spotted another lonesome Florida gar and tried to tempt it with worms to no avail.

Ken had several spots marked on his GPS along the Tamiami trail. Upon arriving at one of these spots, I literally lost my mind. The water was boiling with active fish. We parked and I jumped out... just 15 feet from an 8-foot alligator!

Ken took note that the active fish were Florida gar. We both became giddy with excitement. All the time we had spent focusing on single Florida gar and chasing them around now seemed so silly. There were countless gar right at our feet! However, it would involve braving the alligator.

We began chucking crankbaits and received a few hits and zero hooksets. While Ken continued to fish crankbaits, I moved over to a nearby pond and caught a bluegill and spotted sunfish on my trusty Rapala F7.

#10 Spotted sunfish


Not having much luck fishing crankbaits for the gar, we cut up the sunfish for bait and rigged chunks on single treble hooks. This strategy proved far more effective with our baits being picked up every single cast! Hooksets were hard to find, but it is safe to say we had a blast!

#11 Florida gar











The alligator took notice of our fishing success and decided to crawl over in order to steal our next fish. While the gator crowded our fishing spot, we fished the nearby pond. I was casting my F7 in search of aggressive cichlids, but instead I was catching bass nearly every cast. I switched over to fishing a speck of worm on my micro-sized Tanago hooks and caught my lifer eastern mosquitofish as well as countless small spotted sunfish.

#12 Eastern mosquitofish



The purple iridescence was a beautiful sight on these small spotted sunfish.



Moving further along the highway, we arrived at another promising area. I had spotted a few large, dark fish that did not look like bass and there was a school of tilapia swimming about. Ken and I poked around in the weeks for new species, but we connected with nothing but more spotted sunfish. They were becoming an annoyance. I tried fishing worms, then bread, strawberries, and even oranges for the tilapia, but they ignored all of my offerings. In the meantime, Ken entertained himself with numerous Florida gar. By numerous, I mean that the Florida gar were so thick that they were stacked on top of each other in some areas. Absolute gar insanity. A moment I'll never forget! I watched their hunting strategies with great curiosity. Some would sit still in the shallows to mimic a branch, then strike when a school of minnows passed by.

We moved on, in my books there’s always time for chickens!



We tried a new spot on the way back and Ken hooked into a decent-sized bowfin. We did not have a net so it snapped off when we tried to land it.







With the sun setting we tried one final spot. The weeds near shore produced yet more spotted sunfish, so I began chucking my trusty Rapala F7 across the rows of lilypads. A few bass later, I hooked one with a particularly pronounced white belly. It wasn't until I was unhooking it when I saw the tell-tale spot on its tail! I yelled out to Ken "Peacock bass!". I had finally caught my lifer butterfly peacock bass.

#13 Butterfly peacock bass



...to part 2...

[captain2002]

What an awesome trip, something for every body.

[Giuga10]

Awesome report Mke. That Southern Brown Bullhead looks really beat up. Was it missing skin or was that its actual color?

[MichaelAngelo]

(05-13-2013 04:10 PM)Giuga10 Wrote:  Awesome report Mke. That Southern Brown Bullhead looks really beat up. Was it missing skin or was that its actual color?

Nope, that's just the colour variation. It was very cool, I had no idea what it was until Ken pointed it out... I thought we had a new species on our hands! Well.. in the future it could be classified as a new species... possibly?

[Giuga10]

(05-13-2013 07:00 PM)MichaelAngelo Wrote:  Nope, that's just the colour variation. It was very cool, I had no idea what it was until Ken pointed it out... I thought we had a new species on our hands! Well.. in the future it could be classified as a new species... possibly?

That's pretty neat!