Fishing Tales
Below are a few tales to share.
My first catch worthy of bragging about
7.5 pound catfish caught at a little private lake my friends and I use to fish at. I guess I was around 12 years old at the time. There was an area on the lake where we’d catch shiners on dough balls for bass fishing. To attract the shiners we’d chum for them by digging a coffee can into ant-hills, then throw the ant-egg laden sand in the water. The shiners would go nuts, we’d catch our share then go bass fishing. Once in awhile this catfish would come out of the grasses, bend our hooks, break our lines and I imagine he’d pick off a few shiners during the feeding frenzy. One day we ran out of bread for making dough balls so we put rolled up pieces of paper on our hooks, threw our chum in the water and began fishing. Like usual it didn’t take long for the feeding shiners to show up then out of no-where this big catfish takes the line. Needless to say I/we ran all the way home to show it off, take this picture then fried him up. I can’t ever remember catching another catfish from that lake. Being a private lake maybe there weren’t many stocked in it to begin with.
One of my first fish caught in a kayak
45.5 inch Cobia caught from a kayak October 10, 2005 at Brasher Park on a top water lure with an Okuma AV-50 fishing reel, which fell out of the boat and is sitting in 3 feet of water. Amazingly no water got inside the reel.
What was this guy thinking?
Guess his eyes were bigger than his stomach!
This helps to prove my theory that color and lure size really don't matter much. I believe fish will strike anything if presented properly. Its their natural predatory instinct.
3 ft to 4 ft shark caught between Anclote Island and the power plant
The scary part was, I had been fishing alone about 1.5 miles off shore. Twenty minutes after releasing this shark big bertha, with tail and dorsal out of the water, was thrashing around 15 yards behind me. I thought it might have been eating something by the way it was acting. It didn't matter, I wasn't sticking around to find out and left allot faster than I arrived!
Inshore Grouper (Jewfish)
My first Grouper of any size. He was 38", I'd guess 30 pounds or so. I didn't realize grouper of this size could be caught inshore.
In October 2011 I caught quite a few reds (18" to 28") and jacks, and couple were small but most were 28" to 30".
Snook in the creeks
The Snook and Reds were all over the creeks in the winter of 2011. Most have been under 20" but I've caught quite a few between 24" and 34". It's not uncommon to land 5 or 6 in a day along with a dozen or so Trout and anywhere from one to six Reds. The last part of January my buddy landed a 38" Snook which is a pretty hefty fish. The picture is a 34 incher.
Early October, 2013 the Snook were moving into the creek. The first week out I caught 18 and a few trout. Three of the Snook were between 24" and 28". I also lost three that were easily over 30".
- In the last week of November, 2013 I caught 4 Snook, 4 Reds and 4 Trout.
- On the 8th of December, 2013 I caught 8 Snook 12" to 24", 7 Trout and a Pompano (on a twitch bait).
- On the 17th of December, 2013 I caught 10 Snook, 3 Reds and a few Trout.
St. Johns River bass fishing
On the 29th of March, 2014 I did some St. Johns River bass fishing in the Titusville area. Can't see them all but there are seven total.
37" Indian River Red fish
Caught in May, 2014.
Turtle Rescue
I saved this turtle from losing a leg and/or drowning.
Found it tangled in a lost fishing pole struggling to keep its head out of the water trying to breath.