Orange Lake Series

This post is on the fishing sessions on my trip to Orange Lake Resort in which I had caught fish. I fished different lakes throughout the trip, but unfortunately, I didn't catch as many fish as I had hoped, especially considering the fact that I fished multiple times in the 5 out of 7 days while I was there. Still, the 7 total fish (4 for me, 3 for Jacob) were fun to catch and definitely worth it.
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July 8, 2018

Jacob and I started fishing at Circle Lake, a lake in the resort with a bridge on it that connects an island in the middle to the land. Jacob was fishing with worms under a bobber, and I was fishing with a Texas-rigged Zoom Trick Worm soft plastic lure. It was Watermelon Red colored. Jacob had never caught a Largemouth Bass before, and he was eager to catch his first. Jacob started fishing from the bridge, and I started casting my Trick Worm on the island parallel to the bridge, a few feet away. Before long, something crazy happened. I saw a splash in very shallow water next to the bridge, so I went over to check it out. I couldn't see anything, but I decided to cast in the area just in case whatever made the splash was in the area. I was retrieving the same way I retrieved it for the rest of my trip: twitch, twitch, reel up the slack, pause. As I was bringing the Trick Worm closer, I could see a small fish going after the lure. I felt something on the end of the line, and believe it or not, I had caught a baby Largemouth Bass that was about half - 3/4 the size of the lure itself! Because it was so small and because I wasn't expecting it, it wasn't hooked very well and came off a few seconds after I had brought it out of the water. Still in disbelief, I casted again in the same area to try to catch it again. I did not hook it, but I did see it go after my lure. A minute later, I saw another juvenile Bass right next to the island I was standing on. I called Jacob over and told him that he was about to catch his first Largemouth Bass. He slowly dropped the hook baited with a live nightcrawler into the water, and after a few seconds, the Bass came right at it. It ate the worm, and Jacob hooked it and reeled in. He had caught his first bass! He lipped the Bass, something he had also wanted to do, and released it. It was very exciting. Although we did not catch any more fish, we did find a school of Bream that stole a lot of our worms. The school of Bluegill would eat anything that penetrated the surface of the water. Unfortunately, our hook was too big to catch them. We left when we ran out of worms. It was a successful and fun trip in which Jacob had caught his first Largie and we learned about the school of Bream there. We were definitely going to try again.

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July 10, 2018

Today, I woke up early ready to fish. At around 7:15 AM I was walking toward a lake that I had fished before but hadn't caught anything at yet. There are some trees in the lake, which is good for bass fishing because it provides structure, and Bass stay near structure. I was fishing with my Baitcaster reel, which is a type of reel that's new to me. I was using this reel because the Baitcaster is mostly used for Bass fishing and is preferred by most Bass fishermen. One of my goals in fishing is to learn about different types of fishing and to try (and succeed in) them all. To not be a fisherman that focuses on only one method. My goal was to catch a Bass on my Zoom Trick Worms and a Baitcaster reel, by myself. Then, I would prove that I can Bass fish and that it is a method that I have succeed in. I started to cast at the north side of the lake through some trees. Although I had been practicing using my Baitcaster reel in my backyard, I was not experienced enough and I accidentally casted into one of the trees on the first cast. It broke off my hook and lure. I had forgot to ring extra hooks and lures, so I walked all the way to the house to rig up again and back. By 8:15, I was back at the lake. I was slowly working my way around the lake to the south side, casting and retrieving. I wasn't catching anything. I met another Bass fishermen, Chris. I was talking to him and he gave me some tips on using the Baitcaster, ways to upgrade my gear, and more. After he left, I saw a small, round, bay-like area on the south edge of the lake. It had a small tree in the middle and it looked like it had fish, so I casted there. After about 15 minutes of casting and retrieving, I wasn't expecting a fish, as I had never caught one by myself before, and according to Chris, who had tried both topwater lures and artificial lures at the lake, said that the soft plastic worm wasn't catching fish. But, after a good cast, as I was about to reel in the slack after twitching the rod, I saw the line move to the right. I reeled in, and I felt a tug and saw the flash in the water. Fish on! I reeled it up and caught it! A Largemouth Bass! I pumped my fist in the air in excitement. My first Largie on the Baitcaster and Trick Worm! I have successfully learned how to Bass fish, especially using plastic worms and a baitcaster reel! As far as Bass go, it wasn't very big. But, a fish is a fish, and this one's a grown Largemouth Bass! I felt very accomplished having caught a Bass using new methods to me. It was 9:23 AM when I caught the fish. I packed up and went back to the house, feeling very exuberant. I did it.

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July 11, 2018

On the last day of fishing on this trip, Jacob and I returned to Circle Lake with hopes of finding the school of Bluegill and catching some. From what we saw last time, the Bream in that school were pretty big. I rigged up a much smaller hook and baited it with a piece of live nightcrawler. We waited for a little bit for the school to come, but soon after, the school had arrived. In total, we had caught 4 Bluegill, two each. We would have stayed, but the typical Florida storm that comes out of nowhere was approaching, so we decided to end our fishing session. Jacob and I had a lot of fun catching the school of Bream to end the day.

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Fishing on this trip was brutal. I woke up and left early to walk to a fishing spot multiple times, we lost some gear, had to deal with tangled lines, (especially with the Baitcaster reel) and only had 7 total fish to show for it. Even though we didn't catch so much, the fish we did catch were awesome. Jacob's first Bass, My first Largemouth on the baitcaster and Trick Worm, and a few big Bream. Definitely a successful trip. Stay Tuned and Tight Lines!!!

C-8 Canal Fishing Series

This post is on the series of fishing trips on the C-8 Biscayne Canal, I have been fishing very much recently. These trips are ones that I have caught fish on. In these different attempts to catch fish, I try new techniques based on my previous experiences, as you learn something every fishing trip regardless of it’s result.

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June 19, 2018

For the first trip of the series that resulted in fish, I went fishing on the C-8 Canal again, using bread, to try to catch whatever would bite. From my experiences before, I knew to bring some bullet sinkers with me to tie on in order to keep the ducks and the minnows near the surface of the water from stealing all of our bait. The trip started out well, as I had caught a bluegill! I then threw it out in the middle of the canal to use it as live bait for bigger fish. Unfortunately, it did not work. I went back to fishing with the bread under the dock, and I had caught two Mayan Cichlids! After all, it had been a good day that raised my hopes about the canal. It was good to see that the water clarity and the bite was better after it had rained all week, which made the water more murky. I would have caught more fish, but the bread was very soft and kept on coming off the hook, especially when fish were nibbling it. I also saw some Peacock Bass, which I might try to catch soon. Tight Lines and Stay Tuned!

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June 26, 2018

Today, I decided to try to use a mini rod to catch some fish. I was using hot dogs this time because the bread that I had used before was too light and fluffy. It got off the hook much easier, and to even have the bread stick on the hook for a little bit, you would need to squeeze it and make it wet before baiting the hook. The hot dog was much better because it stayed on the hook until a fish bit it. Fishing was slower today rather than the other day that I had caught fish, and I knew that if I had brought hot dogs that first day, I would have caught much more fish. The water was much clearer today than the last few days because it hadn’t rained yesterday. This let me see the fish better so that I could drop the bait in their direction, and see when to reel in the slack when a fish would take it. The clarity of the water may have been a reason that I did not catch any fish in the past few days, although if I had more time to fish, I may have caught something. Sometimes, a school of fish would suddenly appear and check out my bait, but be gone as fast as they came. Other times, there were no fish to be seen. Overall, after about 35 minutes of fishing, I caught 2 small bluegills. They were fun to catch on the mini rod. The hot dogs were definitely better and stayed on the hook better. Another successful day of fishing that assured that hot dogs are a good bait and that mini rods are pretty fun to use. It also taught me some patterns of the fish in the C-8 Canal.

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July 2, 2018

On this trip, I went back to the canal to catch some fish with hot dogs. I caught one fish, a Bluegill, but I saw much more, and bigger fishes (fishes can be used properly when you are talking about multiple species of fish) check out and even bite my hot dogs. Something that surprised me on this fishing session was seeing some huge Peacock Bass by the bank. As expected, they didn’t bite my hot dog, although I did try, unsuccessfully to hit it in order to irritate them and have them bite my bait, a method I used before during the mating season. It is the very end of the mating season, if not over already, and these Peacocks were definitely not protecting a nest. I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t bring my phone, but I wouldn’t have been able to take a pic of my Bream anyways because it had fallen off the hook as soon as I had brought it up. Today was another short but interesting session at the C-8 canal.

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Awesome Day on Sea Legs

Today I had a fishing day to remember. My aunt, Annette, and I went on our long overdue annual fishing trip on the Sea Legs party boat in Hollywood, Fl. For the first time, we arrived on time to boat. It was a slightly breezy day, and there were some clouds in the sky that would come and go. As we went out, we knew that the trip would not be a rocky one, because we weren't expecting any waves. What surprised us, though, was that the water was almost completely flat. It was looking like a great trip already, and Annette and I had great feelings about the fishing yet to come. We arrived at our spot after about 15-20 minutes after leaving the dock. We started to catch fish as soon as we dropped our baits. Annette and I felt nibbles, slightly jerked up the rod, and reeled up some fighting fish. They were Vermillion Snappers! We kept on fishing at this spot for a while until the school left. The whole boat was catching fish, but we had, by far, the most amount of fish caught at the time, with 10 combined. We already had a few double hookups on one line because the chicken rigs we were using had two hooks baited with squid that were dropped to the bottom. We went to another spot that was not far away, and started catching just as we had before. This time not only were we catching more big Vermillion Snappers, but we also caught some Yellow-Eyed Snappers. They were fighting very well when I brought them up. We continued at this spot until we had a total of 18 fish. We were already satisfied with our trip, and we still had about an hour and a half left to go before we went in! At our last few stops, we had caught some more snappers. The whole boat was catching fish. Our biggest fish of the day was a big Red Grouper that we had brought all the way to the surface, only to fall off just before we could bring it into the book. It's a shame that we couldn't have taken any pictures with it, but at least we had caught it! As the day wore on, the sky cleared up and the people kept on catching. We ended up the trip with a combined 23 fish caught, I caught 15 fish, Annette got 5 fish, and 3 fish were caught by both of us. This was an awesome day of fishing, and we will definitely continue to fish on this boat. Tight Lines, and Stay Tuned!

Fishing with Yoav

Today I went fishing with my friend, Yoav. We went to Dania Pier with my dad and brother, too, after playing baseball. It was a rainy day, and as we were driving to the pier, we were doubting whether we should risk being out in the rain. We went to a bait shop, Anglers Bait and Tackle, before fishing to get some live shrimp. The fishing was slow for most of the day, but we did manage to catch two pufferfish, a Porcupine fish and a Striped Burrfish (edit: I did a lot of research after the fact to find that the second fish was a different species), on tipped sabiki rigs. They were Yoav’s first ‘big’ fish and he was excited about that. Nobody was catching any fish on the pier, and I think we were the only ones to do so. Because of this, we were satisfied with 2 puffers on the day. After all, a fish is a fish! This was a fun day taking my friend out fishing. Stay tuned!