Welcome….

 

 

Welcome to the home of  Bite Me Fishing, a charter and guide service specializing in light tackle inshore fishing based at Steinhatchee, Florida. I am currently taking only limited charters, so if you are interested in sport fishing in a great area, please contact me at grassflats2@yahoo.com.  For specifics about my trips, click the “About” link above.                 

   Capt. Rick Davidson

If I am not available, I recommend you contact my friend Capt. Tommy Thompson at http://www.saltwateranglersguide.com/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tides.Info: Tide Predictions for Steinhatchee River ent., Deadman Bay, Florida

pick your days…and don’t give up

New Year’s weekend was a great example of how weather affects the bite. The mild winter so far has played havoc with inshore fishing. We haven’t had any frigid extended fronts that will drive the trout into the rivers and creeks for any extended time, so as things warm up they move back onto the warming flats. The fishing was reasonable last week until a mild cold front came through early in the week. Some of the very best inshore guides at the Sea Hag Marina came up empty and were putting their clients on black sea bass for substitutes (tasty, but still substitutes). The forecast mid-week looked excellent, with winds of 5 to 10 and warming temperatures and sun. Sounded good to me, so I drove over on Thursday, only to find the forecast had changed to 10 to 15 and clouds for Friday.  However, we don’t always get to choose our days so I figured I’d give it a try on my own and try and locate some fish. Capt. Tommy Thompson had fished on Wednesday with little success, and the guides I talked to were shut out on the same day. A pretty challenging situation. There was a significant late morning low tide which didn’t help, but I was hopeful that the afternoon would warm up. I left the marina around 10 in cloudy conditions; in fact, as I pulled away from the dock it started to rain….which wasn’t on the forecast or the radar. However, it was just a shower. As I came around the bend at Roy’s Restaurant, the full force of the 15 knot south wind hit me. Things were not looking good. The water temp was 58 degrees…right in the area that confuses fish and fishermen. I fished a number of my favorite spots while I waited for the tide to turn so I could get in close to shore. Things did not go well. Not only didn’t I catch anything, I didn’t see anything. No bait, no lethargic fish, no nothing. Finally I tried running to some of my close-in spots to find the wind had actually picked up and there was 2 foot chop on the flats along with the darkening sky. Enough. I decided to go back, have some lunch and see what happened. Lo and behold, around 3 the sun came out and I started back out. The wind was still howling, but it was warming a bit. I managed to get to the area I was headed for in the morning, but it was very choppy and by now the wind was closer to 20 knots. I fished the area and caught nothing. Again, no mullet, no whitebait….nuttin, honey. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one. Again, none of the guides caught fish. However, the forecast still looked excellent for Saturday….sun, 5-10 knots, and a high in the 70′s. I managed to convince Tommy Thompson to drive over the morning so we could give it a try. At 9 AM, things were looking good at the marina.

We left the Sea Hag around 10 to glassy conditions and warming temperatures. We found some of our best spots to be placid, the water to be crystal clear, and nothing there. Initially, no mullet jumping, no pinfish, no whitebait. We decided to wait as the tide came in, and slowly more and more mullet and some schools of rainbait showed up. But in spite of the improving conditions, all we could manage was one short trout to the boat, a few follows and two fish lost. The water temperature was up to 62 degrees. We were dejected but the rising tide made it possible to get to the exact spot I had fished the day before,  so I put the tabs down, jacked up the motor and ran across some shallow flats to get to the area. Lo and behold, there was an airboat camped out right in our area, with a large family on board fishing live shrimp on corks.  We moved a bit to the north and started fishing some sandy and rocky areas mixed in with grass, and immediately began catching fish. We drifted in with the tide, Tommy fishing a crankbait and I was fishing a small suspending plug. We caught around 15 trout, and only one was short. This stocky four-pounder was the largest.

As we drifted in a little closer to shore, still catching nice trout, we got into redfish territory near some rockpiles and I had a huge fight with this 6 pounder; I was fishing with my lightest reel, and one of the trebles became caught in some rock grass. Amazingly he stayed hooked and we were finally able to free him from the structure.

We redid the drift several times, and Tommy nailed this perfect tournament fish: 26.5 inches and 7.5 pounds. Those are the ones you just can’t find when you need them, but I’ll take them anytime. This was the best trip we’ve had in several months, with lots of large trout and reds.

It’s always worth reflecting on what you learned on every trip. When we got back to the docks it turned out that the other inshore fishermen hadn’t caught very many fish; as best we could tell, based on Shane the fish-cleaner’s report, we caught the best  trout and redfish for the day, at least at the Sea Hag.  In his Action Spotter column in Florida Sportsman this month, Tommy had noted the importance of sun in the winter months. Conditions change over several hours, because being cold-blooded, fish will seek out any area that is slightly warmer than the surrounding water, and bright sun warms the flats, rocks, oyster bars, and mud flats more than the surrounding areas. This is especially true on severe low tides when these areas are exposed. Then when the tide comes in, these locations are several degrees warmer than other areas, and that attracts both baitfish and predators.  In this case, the exact same location  was packed with fish when it had been barren 24 hours earlier. The primary difference? Heavy cloud cover and high winds giving way to a slight ripple and bright sun.  The other take-home lesson is that we fished for four hours on Saturday until we found the right combination.  Patience, grasshopper. Sometimes it takes a really awful day like Friday to clarify just how important attention to the conditions and knowledge of the weather changes and tides can pay off on Saturday.

something new…

They say that lures are made to catch fisherman, but in fact those of us that fish artificials do have our favorites that seem to work better in certain conditions. For instance, one of the topwater plugs I use is the freshwater version of the Rapala Skitterwalk;  it’s smaller than the saltwater version, and I just catch more fish with it than the larger plug. I also favor certain colors at certain times of day. In the early morning I use bright shiny plugs (an example would be the nickle SuperSpook Junior), while later in the day I’ll usually switch to a more toned down version (for instance, bone or darker colors).  For suspending lures, I like Paul Brown’s Corky Lures (now made by Mirrolure) and the Mirrodine, and for medium sized crankbaits, the Heddon Swim’n Image. However, like everyone else,  we are frequently trying new lures, looking for something better. A report from the iCast convention in Florida Sportsman caught my eye; I’ve never seen lures that looked as much like real fish as these, but they weren’t released yet. However, I managed to land a few LiveTarget lures (and bought several for Capt. Tommy Thompson for his Christmas present). I literally got mine the day after they were released, and couldn’t wait to try them out. I ordered a a 3 inch scaled sardine suspending bait, a 4 inch Mullet Walking Bait,  and a 3.5 inch Mullet Wakebait.

I was anxious to try these out and Tommy Thompson and I took a trip out of Steinhatchee this past weekend. Conditions were remarkably good considering how awful the wind had been recently, and the air temps were in the 50′s early, up to the low 70′s later in the day.  With a midday low of zero, we figured we better get out early and fish our near-shore spots. We were fishing in 2.5 feet in an area of scattered grass and rocks where we have had some good days recently. I started out with the topwater (as usual) but there wasn’t much of a topwater bite. The topwater mullet lure was quite heavy for its size, 1 1/8 oz., and was easy to cast a long distance. It has rattles and rode somewhat differently, with a bit more tail weight than some other topwaters. This means that it rides very high in the front when working it. Because of the weight, it also works better with a somewhat slower action to emphasize the walk-the-dog action that we aim for.  Tommy began catching some fish with suspending lures so I switched to the wakebait and immediately began catching fish, some of the biggest trout of the fall, with several over 20 inches.  I also managed one excellent redfish, which slammed the wakebait aggressively.

The wakebait has some excellent characteristics for fishing shallow. It’s jointed, which gives it a great action, and the lip is at an angle that allows it to run just under the surface if worked slowly, but it will dive down to 6 inches or so when worked faster, which provides a lot of flexibility.  We had to leave the area as the tide ran out, and the day became overcast . I tried the suspending sardine bait later on in the day. Unlike many similar lures (such as the Mirrodine), this plug actually floats slowly to the top, but will work down to about 2 feet when worked as a twitch bait. I caught several smaller trout later in the day using it.  I thought all of the lures had their advantages, and are fairly unique. They are also not cheap, but in the right situations, I suspect I’ll be using them regularly.

how about some delicious bass?

The weather outside was frightful…at least on the gulf, with 20 knot winds. Capt. Thompson offered me a great Christmas present…a trip on Rodman Reservoir, one of the best bass areas in the country. I used to bass fish a lot, at Orange, Lochloosa and Newnan’s Lakes, and once on the Ocklawaha (which was dammed to create Rodman), but had never been there. We went with Capt. Sean Rush, of Trophy Bass Expeditions (www.floridatrophybass.com) who was involved in the infamous Florida Sportsman Calendar shoot with Tommy. Sean was a great guide….immaculate high-quality equipment, a great boat, and has been fishing this area for 30 years. When fishing for large bass, Sean favors using wild shiners, so Tommy and I gave up our avoidance of live bait for a day.  This is an interesting area to fish; the river was dammed at the time the cross-Florida barge canal was being built in the late ’60s. It resulted in a large body of fairly shallow water with tons of cypress stumps and vegetation that rapidly became a nationally-known bass destination. Every five years or so, there is a draw-down of the water to kill some of the shore vegetation, and we are in the midst of one of these drawdowns. With the dropping water levels, the fish are concentrated and the fishing gets even better.  This picture , showing the old water levels on the trees, will give you an idea of the amount of draw-down at this point, with another five feet or so to go.

With ten dozen wild shiners in Sean’s tiller-driven custom Sea Ark, we ran to some areas at the junction of the river and the reservoir. We were using 20 pound mono on baitcasters, tied directly to J-hooks without a leader.  Most of the time we free-lined the baits near shore vegetation, trying to get the shiners to swim up under the vegetation….where as Sean stated, “they might see some eyes looking back at them”.

We started catching bass immediately, most in the 2 to 3 pound range.  A major challenge for me was not using the braid I use exclusively, because mono requires a fair amount of experience to differentiate the pulling of an excited shiner from the fairly subtle tap of the bass eating it. Most of the time I knew I had a fish on when I saw the line moving away from the shore steadily. The hookset required some effort as well because of the stretching of the line which just doesn’t happen with braid. However, after a few fish, being professionals, we figured things out. Along with some fine bass, we also tangled with some chain pickerel. I’ve studiously avoided any pictures of the “cypress bass” (otherwise known as mudfish), but I did catch one that went at least 6 or 7 pounds).

 

 

 

All told, we caught around 30 bass, with the largest being this 6-pounder. We lost some fish that were certainly larger, several to straightened hooks. We had about 20 minutes of brief sunshine but most of the day was overcast and we had one little bit of rain, but in spite of fairly windy conditions, we were well sheltered in the area.

This was great fun. It has been about 10 years since I last went bass fishing, and in spite of the fairly tough conditions, we were able to fish in comfort, which would not have been the case on the gulf.  Special thanks to Tommy and Sean. This is something we’ll have to do again. And I strongly recommend Sean as a knowledgeable guide when you decide you want to get that trophy bass.

Oh, and in spite of the Napoleon Dynamite reference, no, we didn’t keep any bass to eat.  Catch-and-release is the way to go.

lessons from the pros…

 There’s  an old saying that notes that the more you know,  the more you realize how much you don’t know. No matter how long I’ve fished (which in my case is since I was about 4, which approximately dates to the stone age), I’ve always wanted to learn more, so I love fishing with people that are excellent at what they do.  Capt. Tommy Thompson and I had the great opportunity to fish this weekend with the Zen Master of trout, DOA Lures “Director of Fishing”,  Jerry McBride.  As I mentioned in a recent blog post, Jerry has caught tons of over 30-inch speckled trout  fishing in his home base in the Stuart/Jenson Beach area.  While he fishes primarily out of kayaks and wading, he can on occasion catch fish from a boat, so we invited him on his way through the area to show us exactly how he fishes one of our favorite lures, the DOA Shrimp.  We didn’t have ideal conditions….a bad storm came through and woke us up at 2 AM with lots of fireworks, and right behind it came the wind. Forecasted at 20 knots, we figured we’d find some places out of the wind in Tommy’s flats skiff  “Photo Opportunity”.   Addditionally we were faced with low water, keeping us away from some of our favorite places.  We were fortunate in that the wind started out from the west and blew hard, keeping some of the tide in and giving us a little cushion before the rapid drop as the wind switched to the north.

We started at one of the small creeks, fishing the rapidly dropping water and quickly found a good number of small trout in the 14 to 17 inch range. Many people fish the shrimp very slowly and drag it across the bottom very slowly Jerry fishes the shrimp differently, with quick jerks and a slightly more rapid retrieve, but still slow enough to allow the shrimp to drop toward the bottom after each jerk. This mimics the activity of real shrimp, which jet upwards toward the surface and then drop down into the grass. Getting the weight of the shrimp is important and relates to several variables, primarily depth, but also wind (as it will bow the line and decrease the action). You can get a feel for Jerry’s technique from these Youtube videos showing Jerry fishing, and narrated by Mark Nichols, owner and inventor of the DOA lures.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kayakjerrymac#p/u/10/0UKHeuExR5k

We ran to some more sheltered areas as the tide dropped and continued to find some nice trout, the occasional flounder, and one redfish (I lost another at the boat).  I love fishing with people with a good sense of humor and modicum of intelligence, but I liked fishing with Jerry anyway…to say nothing of the mango/key lime pie with which he donated to the Bite Me Fishing clubhouse. Looking forward to his return on a more congenial day.  Thanks, Jerry!

customizing shrimp…

I’ve recently gone back to using a lure I used first many years ago…the DOA shrimp. It has some excellent characteristics for the kind of fishing I do in shallow water. It’s simple to use, very resistant to destruction by marauding pinfish (although a puffer will take a nice chunk out of one), and one characteristic that sets it apart from scented baits like Gulp: it comes pre-rigged and rides hook  up, out of the grass (it doesn’t stink either and it’s much easier to keep around your boat).  Tommy Thompson and I have comparison fished the DOA versus the Gulp shrimp on a number of occasions;  much of the time, the DOA will outfish the Gulp. One of the comments about these lures over the years is that they were expensive, but the fact that they are pretty indestructible compared to most soft plastics makes up for that. Recently, the company has started selling “spare parts” kits with 9 bodies, 3 hooks and 3 weights for a very reasonable price (http://www.doalures.com/).

This is great for me, because I like to tinker, and for at least ten years I’ve been changing out the hooks on my DOA shrimp. I always felt the angle of the standard hook was not wide enough so I would replace the hooks with wider gap hooks.  DOA shrimp come in several sizes, based on their length: 2,3,4 and 6 inches. By far the commonest size is the 3 inch, which weighs 1/4 oz. The 4 inch, which weighs 1/2 oz., has long been a favorite of mine. Fishing in shallow water, the extra weight allows longer casts with light tackle. The problem is that the weight also drags the bait down quickly, and what is more desirable is a slower sinking rate. The new “spare parts” kits (in addition to the kits, you can buy separate hooks and weights as well for both 3 and 4 inch shrimp) allow me to really customize a shrimp.

Recently my friend Jerry McBride from DOA sent me a number of bodies and weights in both 3 and 4 inch sizes. First, it’s important to note that when you look at the shrimp bodies, there doesn’t appear to be much difference but the 4 inch shrimp is wider and just a bit longer (but not an inch by my measuring).  I have found a specific hook that I use to replace the standard DOA hooks. I get it at Bass Pro; it’s a simple wide gap straight shank (not offset) hook. A 3/0 hook fits the 3 inch shrimp, and a 4/0 the 4 inch shrimp perfectly. I put a drop or two of Loctite Crazy Glue in the hook hole on the back of the shrimp and simply slide the hook through from the top and out the front of the lure. This keeps the hook in place; the standard non-glued hooks allow the body to slide up the line when you catch a fish; it can be easily slid back onto the hook, but glue will keep it in place. The weights slide into a pocket on the bottom surface of the shrimp. Using the different weights, I am now able to have a 3 inch shrimp that is standard, or one that can rapidly sink in deeper water with the 1/2 oz. weight. But what I’ve been doing recently is using the 4 inch shrimp with a 1/4 oz. weight. This combination allows me to use a larger bait (catches bigger fish, right?) that will sink slowly, important in less than 3 feet of water. And the added weight of the body provides a longer cast as well.

This picture shows the specific hook in its package, the 1/4 oz. weight and the 1/2 oz. weight, and an “altered” shrimp.

And this close-up shows the subtle differences in the hooks, with the standard hook on the bottom.  Admittedly, it doesn’t look very different, but I think the little extra gap between the hook point and the body makes a difference. Plus it gives me a great excuse to get Crazy Glue on my hands and gives me something to do when it rains in Steinhatchee.

You really can’t talk about DOA shrimp without talking about colors; there are bunches to choose from. Jerry McBride has caught more huge fish on DOA shrimp that probably anyone (I guess except for Mark Nichols, who invented them).  I’ve recently started using some of his favorite colors- the 382 holographic glitter and the 425 watermelon clear glitter (shown above).  I have always leaned toward lighter colors, like the 305  glow (above on the bottom) and  318 chartreuse glitter.  If you look at the mouth of the 20 pound redfish in my previous post, you’ll see a 4 inch 318 firmly attached to his jaw. According to Jerry, some west coast guides use almost exclusively pink shrimp, so I’ll be giving some of those a try.

DOA makes a lot of excellent lures, most of which I use at some point or another. The BaitBuster is a great lure for large fish in deeper water; I’ve caught cobia and bluefish in large numbers with them. Some excellent fishermen use the TerrorEyz a lot; I’m not one of them as it’s not really made for fishing grass. The relatively new CAL soft tails and the large BFL plugs have their devotees. But without a doubt, the DOA shrimp is my favorite. I fish them slowly, jerking the shrimp out of the grass and letting it settle back slowly; Jerry insists tying the lure on with a loop knot enables it to look more natural in the water. Some fish it faster, like a jig, but I’ve had better luck fishing it slowly and hopping it above the grass and letting it sink back down. Anyone that fishes in the Big Bend area should have a few DOA shrimp in their tackle box, and give them a try in the right conditions; I predict you’ll use them on a regular basis.

Running of the bulls…

Sometimes you get welcome surprises, and that’s what happened this week. With the forecasts looking horrendous for the weekend, and a few days off saved up, I decided to get in the fishing before the major front came through on Friday night.  We took the Photo Opportunity, Capt. Tommy Thompson’s Shipoke skiff. Although the wind forecast was perfect, the tide was unseasonably low with a full moon, resulting in a morning negative low. Negative low tides mean no water anywhere near shore, and since we tend to fish close to shore, that was an issue. However, when you spend enough time in an area, there are usually alternatives. As we were debating where to go first, Tommy suggested a set of sand bars which were about 4 miles offshore. Ordinarily, we don’t fish that far offshore, but with glassy conditions the run was a piece of cake. This is a large bar with scattered grass and even some rocky areas, and it’s a great place to fish for cobia and Spanish mackeral, so we figured we’d give it a try while we waited for the tide to come in. It was a beautiful morning.

We arrived to find one section of the bar was out of the water, four miles offshore; it was a a very low tide. We began fishing with trout rods and immediately started hooking up some large ladyfish and some pretty aggressive bluefish.

At one point Tommy had a large redfish follow his plug up to the boat, only to turn off. A few minutes later he had a ladyfish on and as it came close to the boat a huge redfish tried to grab it.  I was throwing a 4 inch DOA shrimp with a modified hook, and hooked up to something very large, and I was using my lightest rod on the boat. It clearly was a very large redfish and after a 10 minute battle, the hook pulled. Tommy hooked up around the same time using a small crankbait. His fight lasted about the same amount of time before his fish crushed and bent the light hooks and disappeared. We were clearly in a school of large bull reds. I rerigged with a chartreuse DOA shrimp, felt a soft pickup and immediately regretted not having switched to a larger rod as the line was peeling off my 2500 size reel. It was a huge redfish, and the stress level was high, especially after the fish wrapped the line around a nearby crab trap float. The line remained around the float for about five minutes until we could get to it and free the line and amazingly the fish stayed on without breaking the 10 pound test PowerPro. Not only that, but after freeing the line, he managed to get back and do the same thing. Finally we got the line free and then it was was just a matter of hoping the line hadn’t been weakened. After a total of around 25 minutes, I finally got the fish to boatside and Tommy managed to get his head into the net and we hauled him in for some pictures. By the way, that’s the offending crab trap buoy in the background.  This fish weighed a few ounces short of 20 pounds.

 

 

 

A few minutes later, after switching to a DOA shrimp, Tommy hooked up another monster, but he was smart enough to have switched to some heavier tackle. He brought this 18 pounder to the net in 15 minutes.

We tried to find the school again, but for two codgers, two extended battles each had us in need of a brief rest, so we headed inshore but never could find any quality fish other than the occasional small slot trout.  On Friday, Tommy had to leave town and I went out for a short while to try another offshore bar and found some fine Spanish mackerel, a few flounder and lots of ladyfish and bluefish.

Hard to imagine a better fishing trip. This is the season for schools of giant reds. These fish are preparing to migrate offshore and will never return to the shallows again. I’m just hoping they will stick around for a bit before they leave town.

some nice redfish, and the life cycle of the flounder…

Fished this weekend with Doug Barrett after several weekends of horrible weather. We had some interesting conditions as well, with strong northeast winds to 20 knots and a mid-morning low. As sometimes happens with this situation, essentially the tide never came in. In spite of a forecast high of over 3 feet, the water stayed in the 1 foot level through most of the day, forcing us to change plans since we were lacking an airboat. We had some good reports of some nice redfish being taken around rock grass and structure in 3 feet or less, but it’s easier to find this situation when you can get close to shore.  However, we found some very nice upper-slot trout early, and fairly consistently through the day.

In spite of the low water, we found some structure in 3 feet of water about a half-mile offshore and came upon these fine reds, both upper-slot and around 26 inches, both caught on topwater plugs. Doug’s fish was a rarity…it had no spots whatsoever.

I began fishing with a DOA shrimp, trying a new color sent to me by Jerry McBride, DOA’s outstanding fishing director, and found it worked very well on flounder. This particular one was party to a photo demonstration of the life cycle of the Gulf flounder….no further explanation necessary.

Last two pictures courtesy of the fine chef at Fiddler’s Restaurant, the famous Jim Hunt.  The water temp was between 72 and 74 degrees in spite of a nice 50 degree air temp and 15 knots from the northeast. Floating grass became a problem later as the tide creeped in very slowly, but we were able to fish topwaters much of the day. We took some fish using suspending lures as well as DOA shrimp. We fished mostly north of the river in the Rock Point area and in addition to the above caught some really large ladyfish in the 4 pound range…among the biggest I’ve ever seen in our area. We also caught some Spanish and saw a fair number of 30 to 40 pound sharks messing with the large schools of whitebait. I was longing for more water and less wind because I know we could have had a better day in our usual spots. Maybe next weekend…

Back on the water…

Between traveling and bad weather (including 100 degree temps, which I consider bad weather) I haven’t been on the water much since July, but the recent cool spell meant it was time to get back to finding some fish.  I did manage to fish in Naples during the annual Florida Outdoor Writers Festival in the 10,000 Islands with Capt. Phil Deville and Sue Cocking, veteran sports writer for the Miami Herald.  A fascinating place….miles and miles of mangroves, through cuts barely as wide as the boat. We were there when Irene was passing just on the other side of the peninsula so we got some bands of rain during the trip (in spite of the great sky in this pic). We fished the mangroves and avoided the gulf, which was stirred up by several days of high winds. Saw lots of tarpon, caught a nice snook on topwater, and we bagged a few small reds, some trout and using jigs with shrimp sweeteners, Sue got a number of small mangrove snapper. We also had a few tarpon to play with, but never managed to jump any.

 

This weekend, I had several trips fall through, but I needed to get out and look around so I went by myself  (and left my clamp tripod at home). Went out at daybreak on Saturday morning, to find Deadman’s Bay on a low tide and full of whitebait, rainbait and varying sizes of mullet. I fished in 2 feet of water with my usual nickel SuperSpook and found several nice slot reds in the first hour, along with a number of trout of varying sizes. A little later in the morning I found one nice 22 incher that avoided the camera.

 

I ran to a bunch of my usual spots but after around 10 there were no baitfish, and no trout or reds. Water temperature was 77 degrees, better than it has been, but still about five degrees too warm.  But early, there were tons of small fish hitting the schools of small whitebait, so that sounded like a good excuse to try some flyfishing on Sunday morning for a few hours. It always takes me about an hour to get my casting chops back (especially given that even at their best, they are novice in nature). Sunday was exactly the same, and I found a lot of action with smaller fish, catching a number of jacks, trout, and several decent sized ladyfish, which are always fun on a fly rod. This trout was gorged on whitebait.

 

 

There are still plenty of scallops present, although the traffic was minimal.  School starting and a Gator football weekend kept lots away, but the scallop meats are huge and everyone I spoke to was limiting in an hour or so. The season is open until the 25th, and gag grouper season opens on the 17th. I anticipate some great fishing ahead.  Even Michelle, the maitre ‘d at the Tiki Bar, knows the fishing is about to get better.

 

 

 

 

 

Florida cca ICC….huh?

Just in case you don’t know what that all meant, let me tell you a bit about the Coastal Conservation Association. The CCA is a non-profit conservation group that advocates for preservation of marine resources and the interests of recreational anglers. There are state chapters in most of the coastal states in the country, currently 17 states. Florida is one of the largest state chapters, and has a number of local chapters. I’ve been a member of the Gainesville chapter for about ten years now, and now help represent our local chapter on the state board with my friend Wiley Horton. Florida CCA is involved in legislative actions and legal activities that deal with the intersection of commercial and recreational interests and the preservation of resources.  Along  with providing manpower and resources for habitat restoration, CCA Florida takes positions regarding proposed changes  in state and national fisheries legislation. For instance, CCA Florida has taken a strong stand against the state Fish and Wildlife Commission’s recommendations to increase the bag limit for redfish from one per person to two. The redfish bag limit, along with the outlawing of gill netting, has resulted in an excellent redfish population and we see no reason to change this. For more information about CCA Florida, please go to this link:  http://www.ccaflorida.org/index.html

Once a year CCA Florida hosts an inshore fishing tournament that is a competition between local chapters: the Interchapter Challenge (ICC). For the past several years it’s been held in Jensen Beach at the River Palm Cottages, a place I’ve visited several times before that has excellent fishing in the Indian River, including the St. Lucie Inlet. Tommy Thompson and I decided we would take on the challenge, which it was. Some chapters (Orlando and Martin County, for example) had over 15 members fishing and the competition was based on the largest fish caught within the chapter; so, the more people fishing, the more the likelihood of catching some large fish. The winning team is the team with the greatest length of the largest three fish caught from each category: redfish, trout and snook.  All fish are measured on a tournament ruler, a picture is taken, and the fish are released.  Another of our challenges was the fact that the location of the tournament is in Martin County, which also happens to be the home of DOA Lures; Mark Nichols, the owner of DOA, and Jerry McBride, their major point man, fish about five days a week in the area and post their catches for all to see on DOA’s Facebook page. Let’s just say they catch a whole lot of big fish. And they were part of the Martin County group.  However, we knew we’d have a good time anyway, and since redfish have always been the challenge down there, and we love to fish for redfish, we figured we might have a shot, especially since Tommy is familiar with the area. This was their biggest year ever, with 125 anglers representing 19 chapters.

We launched the boat on Friday afternoon at a nearby ramp and staked it out in front of River Palm; that’s the Photo Opportunity on the right side of the dock.  After a great dinner at the chickee at River Palm, we enjoyed the open bar but not for long as we had an early tee time.

We ran north from River Palm to a bay with mangroves on the north side and interesting prefab houses on the south, with a large grass flat in the middle. The flat and the channel alongside of it were full of schools of baitfish. On about the third cast, Tommy nailed a fine trout, followed by a small but legal redfish. I was throwing desperately, since I knew we were going to lose the topwater bite as the sun came up. I made a long cast and as the line settled down, a very unfortunate brown pelican came swooping through. Fish on. I promptly broke the bird off  (he never even stopped, actualy) and had to re-rig. We continued to fish the area but had nothing but occasional swirls. We moved across the flat and decided to fish the mangroves on the other side for snook. We rigged with soft baits, Tommy with a DOA Shrimp, and me with a weedless soft plastic rigged Texas-style so it was weedless, which helps when you’re throwing into mangroves and skipping baits back into heavy brush. We were about halfway down the shoreline when I saw a fish roll on my bait and the line tightened. I set the hook and then started worrying. With my usual cavalier attitude, I was using the lightest rod and reel combo I had. When a fish is hooked in the middle of mangroves, the idea is to horse them out away as quickly as possible to avoid getting wrapped. Well, this was a big fish and I had little choice but to grab the spool and try and turn his head out of the mangroves. At one point he ran about 5o feet under a string of mangroves, then moved away from shore, and amazingly the line managed to make it through as well. Tommy moved the boat away from the shoreline and from then on it was just a struggle with a big fish on light tackle. As we got the fish closer, we were surprised to see that it wasn’t a snook, but a large redfish.  It measured 27.5 inches, without the tail pinched. At the time that seemed like a pretty reasonable fish. In retrospect, I wish we had paid a little more attention to pinching the tail and taking a more accurate picture, but more about that later.

.

With a decent trout and what we thought was a great redfish (the largest redfish caught last year was 21 inches), we decided to spend the rest of the day trying to catch a good snook. We had a few hints from folks (we knew some fish had been caught in the famous Hole in the Wall along the edge of the inlet) but also had some recommendations to try some docs along the river. We fished with DOA shrimp along the docks, throwing into the shady areas under the docks. We finally located some (based on a suggestion from Drew Wickstrom, the media director of Florida Sportsman magazine) and Tommy managed a longspine snook that was two inches short. We had a few others on, but just couldn’t get one that would help.

As it turned out, that redfish was close but not enough for the individual prize, losing by a half inch to a 28 incher. Every time I look at the pic I wonder….could have been 28 with a pinched tail? Anyway, it was a nice fish and I had a great time. Not surprisingly, the winning team was Martin County, with the big redfish and big trout (a 27.5 incher) provided by Jerry Mcbride and Mark Nichols from DOA. Not that they didn’t have help….this is the entire chapter with their trophy (with Mark third in from the right in the back, and Drew with his thumb up in the front row).

The weekend finished off with a live auction and raffle items on Saturday. We left the boat in the water and actually went out for an hour or so Sunday morning but found only some large bluefish and jacks, although I had a large trout on that managed to escape. It was a great weekend. I would encourage anyone who wants to help with conservation of marine resources in Florida to join the CCA. Along with many other benefits,  you’ll get a beautiful magazine, Tide, every month. I’ve included some additional  pictures from the weekend, including Ron Pressley with the Mystery Fish Award for a large (but still juvenile) goliath grouper (he put the ruler in the water to take the pic as it is illegal to put them in the boat….way to go, Ron) and some pictures of next year’s state president, Jeff Miller and his wife Susan (Jeff is also the owner of Miller’s Marine in Ocala, where I have bought every boat I have owned since returning to Florida almost thirty years ago), and some random shots to give you an idea of the event, including a truly committed inshore fisherwoman, and a picture of Steve Furman from Tampa, who also fishes out of Steinhatchee, with a nice Indian River snook,. It was my first time but I look forward to many more.

The trout of the year….so far

Time for an update. The fishing has been….demanding for some of us that fish light tackle in close to shore, and especially those of us cursed with high expectations. Hot water, abundant floating grass, and a relative lack of redfish compared to past years has made some trips very challenging. Among the most frustrating was fishing the Doug Johnson Reeling for Kids tournament.  This great event, the largest on the upper gulf coast, is always the highlight of the year for me. It’s for a great cause, and I was especially happy to be able to fish again this year with Noah Brindise. Last year we had an amazing couple of days of fishing, probably landing 10 large redfish, most oversize. I was concerned, though, because I had a trip the week before with Phil Evans; we targeted redfish, fished hard for 6 hours in some of my best spots, and caught none. The grass made fishing topwaters almost impossible and the baitfish were not in close.  Fishing with Noah and his friend, Greg Cattalanotte, turned out to be just as frustrating. We did find a few trout but only one redfish. Most were catching larger trout in 8 to 10 feet of water, even in the early morning when they usually come in close.

Between the heat and lack of good fish, it made for a frustrating few days, but the tournament was a great success, raising over $180,000 for the Alachua County Boys and Girls Clubs.  I hope to be able to fish it again next year.

This past weekend I took out my former colleague, Bob Watson and his son Jason. One of the early times I fished Steinhatchee, probably about 12 years ago or so,  Bob, Jason and I learned how not to fish Steinhatchee in the winter. Hopefully I’ve learned a bit about the area since then.  This was a birthday trip for Jason, and we still had some challenging conditions. We started out Friday afternoon,  just to explore a bit, without much hope for big fish. The grass was reasonably bad, and Jason, who loves fishing topwaters like I do, spent a lot of time getting grass off his trebles. I rigged a Texas-rigged soft jerkbait (specifically the new Die Dapper Bass Assasin in a glow color) for Bob. When they are rigged weedless, they are a great bait; they can be reeled right through heavy grass.  We went to one of my favorite spots, which has recently been overgrown with widgeon grass, a primarily freshwater grass that usually has died back by now. Bob was working the bait through some weeds when he hooked what was obviously a very large fish. Because it didn’t come right to the surface, I thought it might be a redfish but it didn’t take long to realize it was a really big trout. Bob worked the fish very carefully, making it through a number of screaming drag runs, before I slipped the net under this giant trout.

 This fish measured 26 inches and weighed 6.25 pounds on my Boga, by far the largest trout I’ve seen this year. In fact this fish would have won every tournament this year…if it had been caught at the right time.  Bob wanted to keep the fish, but we had a little problem getting it into the 45 quart Yeti cooler…

We caught several other trout that afternoon, but we decided we’d head back and try things in the morning. Saturday didn’t turn out to be great day. We tried to find Jason a cobia unsuccessfully, and fished a number of usually productive areas, but the grass again made things very challenging. We did manage to find one decent redfish, caught on a topwater, and Bob got another nice 4.5 pound trout.

In spite of the tough conditions, it was great fun to spend some more time with Bob and Jason, and Noah and Greg as well.  We had a good time, enjoyed each other’s company, smoked some cigars and enjoyed some great times at Steinhatchee.  Next weekend is the Gainesville Offshore Fishing Club tournament, and the Steinhatchee Ladies’ Tournament, which will end the tournament season before the hordes show up for scallops on June 25.