boca grande, florida

so the time had come for my family to make their yearly trip to florida. for me it means a chance to target all sorts of new lifelisters. i arrived in boca grande around 4pm on friday and first thing i did was unpack my rods and take one down to the beach. i didn't have much time to fish on the first day so i just walked the beach casting a #15 panther martin. to my suprise on my very first cast i caught a new lifelister. my first leatherjack.

i also caught a handfull of ladyfish and inshore lizardfish on the spinner.

i tried a small fleck of shrimp and caught my lifelist blue runner.

i threw a tiny streamer at some fish around a rocky point and got an atlantic needlefish. 

the next few days i fished the mangroves heavily. mainly using shrimp for bait. 

i caught several gulf flounder along with endless pinfish, spottails and pigfish.

tossing a small fly around i got my first jack crevalle

many of the pinfish ended up being used as cutbait. i hooked 2 snook using pinfish but was unable to land either of them. although i did get quite a few catfish on them.

i tried my micro tackle out around a shallow sandy spot by a kayak launch and caught my first silver jenny. the same spot also produced goldspotted killifish, mummichog and frillfinned goby.

i kept the silver jenny to try for bait later. 

i returned to my spot and could see a large school of fish balled up on the surface and it was obvious something was underneath feeding on them. i rigged up a silver jenny freelined on a circle hook and cast it under a dock right into the school of fish. almost imediately i got a bite. the fish pulled really hard and nearly wrapped the posts but i managed to pull him to shore. my first gag grouper.

i cast into the spot again with another silver jenny on the hook and caught my lifer mutton snapper.

i discovered a pond on the island back in a little neighborhood and decided to give it a shot. large grass carp roamed the shallows but they were not what caught my interest. i could see micros all over the shallows. i rigged up my fly rod to drop a fleck of shrimp on a size 26 hook to the fish. almost instantly it was swarmed by eastern mosquitofish a new lifelister but they got really old really fast. i could see several other species down there and continued trying to get a bait past the mosquitofish. it took forever buy i finally got the bait in front of a different species. a brook silverside! an awesome new lifelister. 

i also caught two killifish that im not sure about the identity of. along with my first sheepshead minnow.

a few weeks before going down to florida i had a guided tarpon trip scheduled but he cancelled due to the weather. i tried desperately to set up another trip and managed to book someone for 6am the next morning. i woke up and checked the weather right away. it didnt look good. i looked out onto the beach and could see massive waves. i called cole and asked if we would still fish even though the weather was looking pretty bad. he said as long as its not thunder and lightning if i still wanted to go we would go. so i made a quick breakfast and headed down to the marina. i met up with cole and we headed out. he fishes by sight using crabs under a float. when the tarpon roll you just cast the bait up ahead of them and hope they find it. we slowly moved along about 400 yards off the beach looking for any signs of tarpon. it only took about 20 minutes before one rolled about 30 feet from the front of the boat. i tossed the crab out and almost instantly my float disapeared under the water. i cranked the line tight and as soon as i did the fish exploded out of the water. fish on! 

the drag on the reel was completely maxed out yet the fish had no problem screaming out 100 yards of line in under a minute. its hard to even describe how powerfull these fish are. only a few minutes into the fight my arm was burning and my hand absolutely ached from holding the rod but the fight was far from over. very very far. 

i got the fish close to the boat several times but every time i thought it was getting close to being over the fish would make another massive run. tarpon are clever. this fish stuck fairly close to the boat for much of the time and was not jumping much. it seemed to just bide its energy because it never tired out. it had been over an hour and the fish was still strong as ever. they have a clever method of giving themselves a boost of energy. the fish will come to the surface and take large gulps of air to get a larger amount of oxygen straight into its bloodstream. every time the fish did this it would make another run.

an hour and 45 minutes since i first hooked the fish i was still fighting it. we had been dragged over a mile off shore and the weather had worsened. the boat was being tossed around in 6 foot waves and i nearly went overboard several times. luckily it finally seemed the fish was tiring and it would be over soon. my arm shoulder and back were in so much pain from fighting the fish and i had developed a baseball sized welt on my hip from the rod butt. finally the fish slowly came closer to the boat and cole was able to grab the leader. i had done it. i caught my first tarpon. i would have liked to get better photos but as we unhooked the fish it thrashed and broke free of coles grip swimming off into the depths. i have never experienced anything like that. it had been two hours and twenty minutes since the fish was first hooked and we had been dragged over 2 miles off shore. 

this place is incredible. i'm sad that i have to return to minnesota today but at the same time i can't wait to be back. i will be returning to florida sometime in august to do more fishing.  i'll be counting down the days till im back.

Species List: 

Catfish, Gafftopsail

Catfish, Hardhead

Flounder, Gulf

Goby, Frillfin

Grouper, Gag

Jack Crevalle

Killifish, Goldspotted

Killifish, Gulf

Ladyfish

Leatherjack

Lizardfish, Inshore

Minnow, Sheepshead

Mojarra, Silver Jenny

Mosquitofish, Eastern

Mummichog

Needlefish, Atlantic

Pigfish

Pinfish

Pinfish, Spottail

Runner, Blue

Snapper, Mangrove

Snapper, Mutton

Tarpon, Atlantic

first bowfin of the year

i wanted to fish bowfin a few days ago so i went out to one of my favorite spots to fish for an hour before work. i had some trouble finding bait at first but i did manage to dig up some ant larvae and used my micro tackle to catch some small bullhead. i rigged up a cut bullhead on my bait caster setup. i tossed the bait out into a current edge and waited. about 20 minutes later my line tightened up and the reel began clicking. i set the hook and connected with the fish. i knew right away what was on the end of my line. a bowfin! a nice one too and the first of the year. measured the fish at 27" and released it. got a few more bites but didn't get any more fins.

a few days below the cliffs

with a few days off till i had to return to work i decided id fish some spots i havent been to yet this year. one being "the cliffs". the cliffs are well cliffs.. lots of very large steep cliffs. at the bottom a beautiful stretch of river running through.

 i tried a spot that usually is good this time of year first. my brother tagged along and caught his first freshwater drum. first fish i caught was a channel catfish an odd catch for this spot. i also got multiple drum and a few smallmouth bass nothing really spectacular but it was fun. right before leaving some other anglers on the far shore caught a yellow bullhead. i have been looking for a yellow for some time now so i returned to the cliffs the last 2 days in a row.

randy's drum

the first day back there was decent. i caught small trout a few redhorse and one really chunky carp.

 also found this little guy crawling around on the banks.

but when it comes to the yellow bullhead i was after i was not successful.


again i  returned to the spot the next day. i walked all over along the river trying different spots. i fished a large pool under a bridge and i caught several trout and a small pike but no yellows.

i found this way back in the woods. its a roughfish june contest button! not sure whos it was. kind of a funny find. also found a sex toy lodged in a tree. ive come across some unexpected things walking through the woods down here but that is a new one.

i went back to my first spot and caught a very fat carp.

i fished there till the sun started to set catching a huge variety of fish but no yellows. the last fish of the day was this silver redhorse. i would have stayed longer but a group of teenagers were under the bridge blasting rap music, tossing bottles and rocks into the river. when i asked them to stop a rock got hurled in my direction so i decided its time to leave.

in the end i realized how many different kinds of fish are in this system. i will be back at the cliffs a few more times over the next couple of days hopefully i can find myself a yellow bullhead.

all in all i caught: bluegill, channel catfish, creek chub, smallmouth bass, common carp, freshwater drum, silver redhorse, golden redhorse, shorthead redhorse, northern pike, brown trout and walleye.

missouri

me and cyndie decided to take a roadtrip down to missouri for 5 days. we stayed at a small town near lake of the ozarks that was absolutely loaded with water. it seemed like you couldnt go 50 feet in any direction without finding a creek lake or river. almost instantly when we arrived we chose a nearby creek and started fishing. it was a crystal clear stream with a few deep pools. from the bank fish were visable in every portion of the creek. you could see dozens of suckers drum and catfish cruising about through a deep riffle pool, bass and sunfish darted around through the schools of shiners and even the occasional grass carp would move through. 

i noticed some darters close to shore and rigged up for micros. almost right away i was able to catch a logperch. a new lifelister for me. 

as i fished to some nearby shiners cyndie had found a small slackwater and caught her lifelist northern studfish. i moved over to where she caught it and quickly got one myself along with my lifelist ozark minnow.

after catching a few more micros i switched up to my fly rod with a tiny leech fly to cast towards the sunfish. almost instantly on my first cast to the far shore i caught my lifelist longear sunfish. a few casts later a lifer spotted bass. 

we breifly tried fishing below the dam but didnt have that great of luck. so we called it a day and headed back to our hotel.

the next morning we returned to the creek to catch bait for below the dam. we tried a different spot that was shallow and rocky. right away i noticed tons of shiners and darters. i got my micro tackle out and it wasn't long before i caught my first orangethroat darter. 

 

 

soon after i caught my lifer bleeding shiner. there were huge schools of them everywhere. they were so thick at some spots the river bottom looked red.

 

 

 

after filling up my minnow bucket with shiners and chubs we went to a spot below the bagnell dam. we set up 2 rods with cutbait on the bottom and waited for a bite. only minutes later cyndie got a fish one. it was a shortnose gar a new lifelister for her.

 

 

 

we stayed at this spot for a while catching gar and wipers. after the sun went down we tried for catfish. right away we noticed fishing for catfish in missouri is very different. we got almost constant bites all night but it was just hordes of tiny channel catfish picking up the bait and dropping it. we got several more serious bites but were not able to hook up. cyndie hooked into a big fish that night but it almost instantly ran into a snag. we gave up on catfish for the night and headed back.

 

we decided to explore a bit on the next day and drove down to the missouri river. unfortunately when we got there it was about 15 feet over its banks and whole massive trees were floating down the river. we went back towards jefferson and fished the moreu river. it was absolutely packed full of silver carp. thousands of them just lazily swimming around by the top of the water. we fished for a few minutes but only caught bluegill. before leaving for a new spot i caught a western mosquitofish on the boat launch.

 

we decided to fish the opposite side of the dam for the night. we setup for cats again and i threw on a tiny panfish jig to catch a bluegill for bait. cast it out into the current and let it drift down. i caught several bass drum bluegill and wipers this way. we setup for cats with cut drum and i tossed the jig around a little more. as it drifted out of the current and towards the slack on the current seem i got a really hard thump that even ripped out a bit of drag. i set the hook and line began screaming out of my reel. i quickly set my drag down so the line wouldn't break. i only had 10lb powerpro and a medium spinning setup and whatever was on the end of the line was huge. it took 15 minutes before i had the fish even half way to shore. as it got closer it turned towards me and i gained a good ammount of line and got my first look at it. i could see the large grey body of the fish occasionally come up but no clear look at the fish. i got it right to my feet and began walking  back dragging it up against the bank. cyndie was terrified to even touch it as it thrashed around in the shallows so i passed her the rod and ran down the bank. i grabbed the fish by the mouth with both hands and hauled it onto shore. it was a bighead carp with my jig a good 5 inches into it mouth with the hook bent almost straight. these fish are incredible the girth is absolutely insane and the mouth could fit a softball! i taped it at 42". not a clue as to how much it weighed. 

 

 

my arm absolutely ached after reeling this thing in so we went back to the hotel to enjoy some cold pabst blue ribbon.

 

 

we set out the next day to fish a slackwater near the dam i had looked at but not fished. on the way there my car started acting up and we pulled off the road to see my tire was completely flat. we were on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere on a 95 degree day with a flat tire. even worse i absolutely could not get the old tire off to put the spare on. we had to leave the car and walk till we found someone who had better tools than us to help get the tire off. after getting the spare on i decided since we were so close to the spot we wanted to try we should give it a shot for a little while then get the tire fixed.

 

 

 

there was a slow current moving along the side of an area with absolutely no current and gar were rolling like crazy. we fished cutbait under a float in the middle of the pool and it never took long to get a bite. we caught several shortnose gar and some white bass. i hooked into a few really big longnose gar but had trouble keeping any of them on. we would sometimes get a bite almost instantly. once our float started running away we would flip the bail on the reel let the fish run with it for a bit and set the hook. cyndie was having a much easier time catching gar then i was. i was beginning to get frustrated after a few more bites got missed. finally i got one on and it was hooked good. it felt like a really nice fish so i was getting excited. it rolled close to shore and i noticed it was a paddlefish. i was thinking that somehow i tailed the fish so i wasn't taking it serious thinking about how i wished it was a big gar not a snagged fish.... but then it surfaced close to shore and i realized my hook was in its mouth. thats when i let out a "HOLY SHIT!!!" that startled some of the locals fishing by us. we quickly snapped a few shots of the fish and got it back in the water.i sat there on the shore with a big grin on my face my heart going a million miles an hour and my hands shaking. we left soon after to grab some lunch  get the tire taken care of then get back out for more fishing.

 

 

 

 

we went back to the spot by the dam to try for cats. i started out throwing a rapala around while cyndie caught bluegill for bait. right away i got a shortnose gar that beat my personal best.

 

 

 

 

this fish had a gnarly upper jaw.

 

 

i cast around the rapala as it got a little darker and caught a decent wiper.

 

 

after that we got catfish bait out right away. again the bites came instantly. small fish just picking away at the bait. this would go one all night and was extremely frustrating. i rigged up my medium setup and tossed a tiny chunk of bluegill out on a small hook with a few splitshots on the line. as expected i got a bit within 5 minutes and reeled in my lifelist blue cat. cyndie cast out with the same line after that and got hers in only minutes too. both fish were super tiny and probably the size of all the ones down there picking at the bait.

 

 

cyndie's blue

 

 

we got a few better bites but had a hard time hooking any fish. at around 2am we called it a night and went back.

 

 

the last day we spent just exploring the area. we didn't get all that serious about fishing. we hiked a few creeks and i brought my micro gear along. at one spot one a tributary of honey creek i caught this. i believe its a longnose dace but please correct me if i am wrong. 

 

 

we explored all over the place but didnt find much. after that we went back got everything packed up then went out to a local resturant for dinner. afterwards we went to bed and drove back in the morning feeling sad about having to leave.  all in all this was the best fishing trip i think i have ever had.