So a little report on my recent trip down to South Florida for my fishing trip (and cousin's wedding which was technically the purpose of the trip):
My brother and I arrived in Miami on 6/28 around noon, and we decided to do some Peacock Bass fishing in a canal that runs through a park near the house where we were staying. It was perfect timing as we got there right near the end of the spawn in that area. We would find the Peacocks that were nesting and throw anything with a hook at them that was capable of ticking them off. The bass would see it, and it was actually kind of funny how angry they got. If they didn't strike at first, it only took a couple of more flips and they would hit it incredibly hard. The only tough thing was timing the hookset because they only took the bait in for about a half a second before spitting it out outside the nest. Those peacock bass can fight too, and they're absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately I forgot my digital camera so all I have is normal photos, but I'm gonna try to find someone with a scanner so I can post them in a couple of days. At the end of the trip (beginning of July) it seemed like the spawn was over as we had trouble finding any bass on the beds, but we had our fill up to that point. We also caught a Tilapia, which is rare on a 3 inch senko, but apparently they're kind of a problem down there because there are too many of them, resulting from people releasing them from fishtanks.
We went on a deep-sea charter trip which was a lot of fun other than the couple of hours we spent looking for fish. But when we got on the dolphin it was a blast. Between five of us we caught about 40 dolphin (all little peanut dolphin, biggest about 7 lbs) in less than an hour. I brought along a little (for deep-sea fishing) spinning rod and it was a blast to catch these fish on anything I threw at them. I also caught a Cobia trolling (the captain said it was incredibly rare to catch them while trolling) and we caught a few King Mackerel. Good day in all.
And finally, the kicker was a guide trip down in the Everglades out of Flamingo, fishing for Tarpon, Snook, Redfish and Seatrout. What a day that was
The guide definitely knew what he was doing and put us on some good fish. We first fished an open area known for huge tarpon at a high outgoing tide. We saw a bunch of tarpon rolling and jumping, but they were really spread out and we didn't hook into any after about 45 minutes, so we went to a beach shore and did some sightfishing for snook. It was really cool to see these fish cruising along the beach (literally in the surf with their backs sometimes out of the water, just a foot or two off the beach). We caught several snook (my biggest was just under 10 lbs, and the first one I hooked into was an estimated 15 but I lost her). A lot of the time the snook would hit it and come at the boat, so all you felt was the lack of any weight on the line. We had to reel down to the fish really fast and set the hook when we got those strikes, which was kind of tough. We also caught a few keeper Seatrout, a bunch of jacks, ladyfish, and an ugly sailcat (watch out for the spine on those). Most were caught on rootbeer colored grubs or swimbaits. When we had our fill we anchored at a creek mouth at incoming tide, caught a redfish, more snook, and my brother caught two little tarpon (one on a zara spook, which was awesome). Most of those fish were caught on white bucktails (by far the best all-around bait down there - you can catch
anything
on those). We finished the day sightfishing the flats for snook and reds. It was a terrible feeling when the guide headed back to the marina, but what an awesome day. It's something else setting the hook into a fish that goes on several runs (and jumps with the tarpon) pulling out a good bit of drag.
Our last day we went back down to Flamingo and rented a canoe on Nine Mile Pond to catch some bass (trying to beat our personal records). Unfortunately, we didn't catch anything worth mention before a huge thunderstorm rolled in. It was cool to hook into baby tarpon (we didn't land any there) and bass in the same body of water. After the storm passed, we fished from shore on a couple of ponds (brackish water) along the road to flamingo. We came across one, Mrazek Pond, where there were tons of little tarpon rolling (if you don't know about tarpon, they roll occasionally to "gulp" air, giving away their presence). We would wait for one to roll then cast ahead of it with jigs and topwaters. It was really cool to see this huge bulge of a wake behind the lure before the fish absolutely nailed it then went for a couple of tailwalks. The tarpond usually wouldn't hit the bait immediately but follow it for a few seconds, which definitely raises the hair on your neck. We landed 3 but hooked into about 10 of them (it's tough to land those guys). It was a little unnerving landing them given the fact that the area is known for crocs and alligators, but we were careful and avoided any serious confrontations.
All in all, an amazing trip (the wedding was nice too). I highly recommend a trip down there, and if you want a guide trip, the one I found online, Doug Lillard, was very knowledgable and easygoing.
Chaki
