700th Fish at Dania Pier

     Being back in Miami with all the trips done and a big move on the horizon, Marcus and I made a plan to fish again together perhaps one last time before leaving for our respective law schools. Seeing as how he lives a bit closer to it, we decided to hit up the Dania Beach pier. I hadn't fished there in years, but I was excited to head back there and see what we could catch, especially with more fishing knowledge now than before. I woke up at around 6:30 to get ready and after picking up Marcus and his cousin Liam we made our way over to Angler's Bait and Tackle. The workers there were helpful in giving us tips when I asked for confirmation on the gameplan for the day I'd laid out. We picked up a couple of sabiki rigs with 1 ounce sinkers and a pound of squid to use for bait. The goal was to catch baitfish like pilchards on the sabiki and toss those out for bigger fish. Once we were all set following this quick stop we parked at the pier (which was m ore expensive than expected) and walked on, paying the 4 dollar fee each. There were schools of baitfish right at the base of the pier. We immediately put our extra rods to the side and I set up a sabiki on one of them, showing them how to jig one lightly to catch a fish. They tried unsuccessfully at first by dropping it directly down into the water, but when I took the rod and casted a bit out, lightly jigging it on the retrieve, I came up with a pilchard, or Scaled Sardine, on my first cast. I put it onto my heavy rod with a 3 way rig attached to it and casted that out. We spent the first bit of the day fishiong near the base for bait, each of us coming up with some good ones occasionally but nothing too consistent. At one point, I suggested going down further down the pier so that we could use the squid near the pilings for fish while also casting the live bait out into a more reef covered area. As Liam and I were fishing further down the pier, Marcus stayed back and kept fishing with the sabiki. Soon enough, however, Marcus called me over to check out his catch, which he had put into the bait bucket we'd brought. He noted that it was different from what we'd been catching, and a little bigger. I reached in and pulled it out to see that he'd brought in a small Yellow Jack, species #140 for me. A beautiful fish, it was cool to have brought in a new species on the day and a new type of Jack. We all kept fishing, bringing in a fe more pilchards as bait and nothing much going on about halfway down the pier. At this point I figured we should start tipping the sabiki. We brought all of our gear even further down, closer to the reef area and the T at the end of the pier (stopping short of it) and tipped the sabiki hooks with small pieces of squid. Liam dropped it and immediately got hit. It's funny since nobody on the pier was catching much until this drop. He reeled it up as soon as the rod bent over to see a small Tomtate on one of the hooks and a bigger Blue Runner on another. The Blue Runner was so frantic as it came up that its twisting resulted in getting three other hooks from the sabiki rig stuck in and wrapped around its tail. We used the Blue Runner as cut bait on a heavy rod and had to do away with the sabiki rig. Luckily, we bought two at the bait shop. The cut bat (or even live blue runners whose tails I would shred a little to hamper their swimming abilities) didn't seem to work, even with Barracudas prowling. Odd. However, after setting up the other sabiki rig, we tipped the hooks again and Marcus dropped it. He, too, started getting bites immediately and he reeled in a solid Blue Runner. Thus began the frenzy. It felt like every drop we made was immediately met with bites, and while we outfished the entire pier at the time, the rest of the fishermen on the pier were catching too. We'd get pilchards - one time I caught four pilchards in a row in consecutive drops - along with more Blue Runners and Tomtates. However, we'd also add in a few more random species beyond the Yellow Jack from earlier in the day. Liam brought in a Lookdown, I once reeled in a tiny Yellowtail Snapper, and Marcus even caught a Bermuda Chub. It just goes to show how much variety in species there are on the South Florida coastal reefs. At one point towards the end, I started to freeline a strip of squid on a circle hook. Feeding frenzies ensued, and I would flip the bail to set the hook in hard fighting Blue Runners that would try to take me under the pier. The first of these was my 700th fish. Overall we caught about 26 fish more or less before a cool wind instantly picked up and it started to pour. By then we'd had opur fill so we went back to the car to get lunch. It was a very fun day of catching. Once again, the sabiki came to the rescue and provided some interesting looks at what was living under the pier. I'm now over 700, but I'd recently been thinking about how relatively small that is. I love to fish, but I don't go as often as I'd like - I really needed to get my numbers up. Today was the day of high numbered catching I needed. I can also say, thankfully, that I've caught a great amount of species proportionately, and have fished with many different methods in many locations. I look forward to continuing my fishing journey even further as I learn and experience more.

  

   

   

   

  

Quick Bass Trip with Larry

     It's been a busy summer. With graduation, traveling, and apartment hunting, I've luckily had a lot to occupy my time. However, being a few weeks since I'd last picked up a rod, I started to get the itch for fishing. I admittedly became a little insufferable to the rest of my family that do not like to fish as I kept trying to sneak it into our schedules. It seemed as if I was going to come back from my trip to New Jersey seeing the Caplans without being able to fish until our flight back to Miami got canceled and we rescheduled until Thursday. While it did change things up in our expected schedule, it gave me another chance to go fishing with Larry. He already had some rods rigged up with small black or pumpkinseed plastic worms (some with a ring tail) that we simply loaded into the car and drove over to a nearby lake. It was a lake that I had fished with Ben before, so it wasn't unfamiliar. It's convenient because, as a retention pond for a neighborhood, it has low grass with fewer ticks than otherwise and there is a road right next to it where you can park. The water at the pond is apparently much lower than normal this summer, and given rain the night before the banks were a little muddy, so Larry lent me a pair of hiking boots. A worry for me on this excursion was the time of day; we could only fit fishing in at the peak of the afternoon, which is not necessarily a prime time for fish activity. That being said, this was more about getting our baits in the water and having a good time than strict fishing. Once we got to the lake, Larry showed me his retrieve, which I followed for most of the day: let the worm fall to the bottom after casting, then continuously reel in very slowly while twitching the rod tip back and forth. Bringing the worm back up at the end of my retrieves, I could see that it did in fact provide a convincing presentation. It was no surprise, then, that Larry hooked up on a bass very soon after starting. I was dealing with a tangle on my own rode, caused by the fact that the very light line was new and had sat unused in the garage for a while. Because of this he kindly offered the rod to m to finish reeling while he cut the knot on my line. I reeled it in and we took pictures with our first bass of the day. It wasn't long after that that I saw and felt fish thump my bait, and soon I hooked up on a small bass myself. It's funny how aggressive Largemouth Bass can be; sometimes small bass can go after baits as big or potentially even bigger (as I have seen) than themselves! I unhooked it and released it and we continued fishing around the bank. There was one spot as we went further along the right, near some trees and a creek, that seemed very promising. I saw sunfish in the water and casted near there, getting a few bumps but no hookups. We kept on making our way around the corner of the bank, casting out into deeper pockets in hopes of hooking into more fish. Unfortunately, nothing more was biting and it was still very hot out, so we made our way casting back along the bait to the car. Larry said he had a feeling about each of my casts, but nothing seemed to work after those first two. He said he liked my retrieve, which was pretty erratic but done exactly how he told me, so that wasn't the problem. At least we weren't skunked! It's always nice to go freshwater fishing, and using artificials for Bass for that matter, because although they are a top American gamefish, I don't often get to fish freshwater as much as I'd like. I also don't often use artificials - there's something to be said, however, for the feeling of accomplishment you get from tricking a fish into biting your plastic lure. It was nice to be back on the water and doing some casual fishing with Larry for a bit before heading back and firing up the grill.

  

Nofing: The Master of the Sabiki

    Today was a unique day, despite not having much success on the water. Noah, a college friend who is from the gulf coast is spending the summer in South Florida and had been trying on his own for some Snook. We decided to get together, along with our friend Adam, to do our best to try to catch them. We planned for 6:30 at the Bal Harbor Jetty at the south side of the Haulover inlet, hoping that the evening outgoing tide would be conducive to our success. I picked up some live shrimp on the way over, and I set my gear up with Noah at the parking spot next to the bridge before walking over to the jetty, with Adam arriving a few minutes later. Chopp had a great idea with bringing a folding chair - something I should think of for next time. As soon as we got there, Noah casted out his sabiki rig just past the rocks, each hook tipped with a small piece of shrimp flavored fishbites, and just left a little bit of slack for like 5-10 seconds before reeling in the line, each time with a fish or two on one of the hooks. Tipping the hooks with Fishbites, a sturdy bait, is a good idea; normally I tip the pieces with shrimp, which is easier for fish to take off the hook. Noah, used to fishing the gulf, which doesn't have as much of a presence of coral reefs, was surprised at the fact that he was bringing up more colorful fish than just pilchards. The sabiki was bringing in Bluestriped Grunts, Tomtates, and even a Porkfish. This was combined with a bluestriped grunt I also brought up on a simple three way rig I had set up with a live shrimp. Noah and I both hooked these small, bait sized grunts, near the anal fin of the fish on 3/0 circle hooks rigged with a relatively light bank sinker on a three way rig which we casted out in hopes of getting a big fish. Unfortunately, nothing substantial took our baits. We were also victims of the copious amounts of sargassum washing in, both from the rotting smell from the dried sargassum on the beach behind us, and the way it would get caught on any line we casted out that stayed on the bottom. While we fished past sunset and a bit into the night, we didn't catch anything else and packed up to go at around 9:10. The three of us then went to the Haulover food trucks, something they've got going until 10 PM every Tuesday night and which I haven't been to in years. Despite not catching what we'd hoped for, it was cool to see Noah's almost magic touch with the Sabiki (it's supposed to be pretty easily successful, but he made it completely effortless with the fishbites) and having a good time with good friends. It was also the first time I went fishing with my new glasses, which helped me see the ripples and reflections in the water clearly for the first time in a long while. It was teh right time to use them too since we were able to see a beautiful sunset.

 

  

  

  

The Keys Are Like A Box Of Chocolates

 Once again, we're all back home in Miami, so I reached out to Davis and Milan to make a plan to head down to the keys to catch up and catch some fish. We'd gotten up and left pretty early in hopes of getting to the bridges early, which was a good idea even if not everything worked according to plan. I picked them up before heading down south, stopping at the last stop bait shop in Homestead right before crossing over into the keys, since we were going to take the Card Sound road this time. Milan said he knew a good bridge by Alabama Jack's that we would try out. However, planning on potentially later heading to Channel 5, we got two blue crabs as bait as well. When we got to Alabama Jack's, we saw that a place Milan knew to hold fish was fenced off. However, we parked along the side of the road and walked over to the bridge to see what we could catch. At this point, it was low tide, so we were somewhat skeptical about whether the fish would really hold in the shallow water. We tried it anyways. Once we dropped our baits, we started feeling nibbles. It was truly great to be back at it, fishing in the Keys with some good friends. I was the first on the board with an undersized Mangrove Snapper. Next up was Davis with a Bluestriped Grunt. While we started off catching fish, most nibbles resulted in clean hooks. We bought three dozen shrimp, but Davis was unsure at first about whether they actually gave us three whole dozen. This unfortunately became an issue quick as we were running through our bait. Due to the uncertainty of the parking situations (signs next to the road warned that there was a fine for parking there) and since we had the crabs we were hoping to get to other bridges anyways - so we packed up and moved on. We drove down to Channel 5 and got there at around 9:30 AM. Not very early like we'd hoped, but not too late. We got lots of nibbles on the bottom again, but nothing very substantial. We brought in a few snappers and a LOT of Slippery Dicks. Milan had stayed behind to fish the seawall under the bridge while Davis and I had fished the bridge, and after a while of getting our bait stolen and just catching the same fish, we moved over to Milan's spot. There, he had caught a lobster with a net which was just out of season. We also reeled in a few snappers on the edge of the seawall, but nothing much. Back up in South Florida, I'd heard reports about how bad the sargassum piling up on the beaches has been getting. It was apparent for us here too; while the current at the middle of the bridge had swept away any sargassum, it had clumpoed up toward the edges of the channel. Thus, when I casted out my crab on the heavy surf rod, which was rigged on three feet of leader attached to a three way swivel, with about a foot of line attached to a bank sinker on another eye, it would get caught up in the weeds. Thus, partially in frustration, I just dropped it next to the seawall, not expecting much. At one point, I noticed the line moving a bit so I picked up the rod and reeled in some slack. I thought it may have been caught on a rock, but whatever was on the other end took a big run once it was solidly hooked. I fought the fish steadily and brought it up, with the help of Milan netting the fish at the surface. Replacing the crab on the hook was the beaked mouth of a Rainbow Parrotfish, a beautiful new species for me. We kept on fishing, catching a couple more snapper before getting lunch since the fish were clearly hitting their midday siesta and we were getting hungry. We went to Robbie's, at this point becoming our tradition, with a great view and great food. It was less packed than we'd expected, which allowed us to get a table right next to the water with no wait. We saw some kids fishing in the water surrounding the docks with the famous tarpon which can be handfed with herring. It may be morally fishy, but where else can you find a better spot for hard fighting Tarpon? After eating we decided to fish over by the bridge on the side, away from the docks, to see if any snapper would bite. Milan had some leftover frozen shrimp he had caught months ago when the shrimp had pushed inshore in the winter. They didn't look or smell too great, but it was bait. Without moving the car, which was convenient, we got our rods and walked over to the spot next to the bridge, which actually seemed to be set up for fishing with a path and a garbage can. We spent the next two hours catching snappers and grunts, including a Caesar Grunt, and trying to avoid the needlefish. We didn't target them, but someone had clearly caught a Tarpon there because we could see dried tarpon scales on the ground. Unfortunately we didn't catch any keepers, with the biggest snappers being in the 8-9 in range, short of the 10 in minimum. We also caught one of the biggest Tomtates I'd ever seen. The time went by quickly though as we were having fun, and we packed up to head back home at around 3:30-4 or so in the afternoon. We spent the ride back reflecting on the keys, looking out over the colorful reefs and water on each bridge we crossed. It's really amazing how close we live to such a prime natural beauty. The fishing here, even when it isn't a particularly good day, is almost always surprising. You can almost count on pulling up something unexpected, as we did today with the parrotfish. With every cast or drop, you never really know what you're gonna get. The rest of the ride was spent catching up more and talking about boats, as Milan had gone to college in the keys learning boat mechanics, and life in general. It was reminiscent of the trip we took down here after graduating high school, and it was cathartic now that we had all graduated college. It was great to keep the tradition alive with this Keys trip and I look forward to many more.