September 2011
1 post
A Savage Week in Port O'Connor
Six straight days of fishing—-that’s a real vacation, even if you’re tired and sore each night. You won’t find me wading through the buffet line on a cruise ship with a thousand tourists, or some idyllic beach reposing in a lawn chair reading a trashy novel…I seem to be happier slinging spoons where waves wash and crash against cruel jetty rocks on the Texas coast.
So that’s what Pete...
May 2011
1 post
A strange, twisted tale of a cobia's demise.
We were offshore in the Gulf yesterday, a dozen miles off the Florida coast, and I’d just finished a half-hour dive, taking pictures of undersea critters. A peaceful endeavor. But back in the boat, things were about to turn strange and violent. A big cobia suddenly appeared, cruising boldly on the surface, circling us. I grabbed the biggest rod on the boat, rigged with a circle hook. We had...
August 2010
3 posts
Kingfish Chronicles
While offshore in the Gulf of Mexico kingfishing recently with Bud and Alan Reynolds, we had a good day—-releasing six fish that exceeded 30 pounds. The biggest was estimated at 42 pounds. Plop! Back in the water. It’s a little tough, grabbing them by their bony tail as they pass alongside the boat, and timing is critical. The fish has to be right on the surface, yet the the angler...
Sun Protection
I’ve been experimenting with sun protection for the past several years, after being carved on by the skin doctor a few times, usually on my face and once on the back. And it wasn’t as much fun as it sounds…I’d been wearing Columbia Wear long sleeve shirts since 1994, back before they became stylish far away from the docks. Captain Joe Surovik, who’d survived a major...
1 tag
Red Snapper in the Gulf
Last Sunday we went scouting for big kingfish, since there is a king tournament coming up in Freeport, Texas the following week. We knew snapper season was closed to recreational anglers, but figured we’d still catch something to eat, while running all over the Gulf in a center console Contender boat. We found the kingfish, in a narrow band of water beyond what appeared to be a large dead...
July 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Sea Turtles Scramble
We were recently on the beach at Boca Grande Pass in Florida, 90 miles south of Tampa, watching young sea turtles scramble. It seems that a young girl, while digging a sand castle, had uncovered an unmarked sea turtle nest. Most turtle nests are found the morning after they’re created, since sea turtles dig their nests at night. They leave a broad track in the sand, like a tractor tire has...
1 tag
Amazing crab run
Many of us have bemoaned the loss of healthy populations of blue crabs on the Gulf Coast, mostly from excessive commercial harvest, with thousands of traps on the bays, and also countless lost (ghost) traps that continue to harvest. As kids we used to sell large, male blue crabs for a nickel each to the local Cajun grocery, when I lived in Port Arthur, Texas. But that was 40 years ago.
We were...
May 2010
2 posts
2 tags
Bowhunting for fish? It works!
Recently I was invited to take photos on the boat with an Orlando fishing guide named Ed McCormick, who uses only a bow and arrow on his fish. His jonboat is rigged up with floodlights on the bow, because shooting at fish is night is presumably easier than during the daytime. So, we met at a place I suggested, Salt Springs, which flows to Lake George and then the St. John’s River in...
1 tag
Big drum return to the shallows
Early summer has arrived and with it, the return of black drum in the shallows. These big fish prowl Florida’s Gulf side in only two or three feet of water, when the tide is rising, and only for 2-3 hours, in certain areas. Our favorite spot for this is Cedar Key, a quiet village on an island and causeway in the Gulf. The bottom here is often soft, somewhat murky and favorable for oyster and...
April 2010
1 post
2 tags
Florida Springs in Distress
Florida has many freshwater springs, gushing water at a steady 72 degrees in the eastern part of the state, and a chilly 68 in the Panhandle. However, many of these springs are now ailing. Some have been loved to death by the swimming public, converted into sand pits by too many feet, the vegetation and fish simply gone. Other springs, located near cities, have run dry when their aquifer...
March 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Papa Joe's Ashes
My dad always wanted his ashes spread in the Gulf Stream, the big current flowing past Florida that eventually crosses the Atlantic and warms Europe. He wanted his ashes traveling all the way to Ireland, on that current. He had conducted lots of research on sea turtles and their relationship to ocean currents, while working at the University of Miami. His urn and ashes had to wait four years in...
1 tag
Cruel Fangs on a Canoe Trip
It’s hard, sometimes, when you flip a canoe in cold water, the lake’s black water closing over your face, turning to darkness, with an angry water moccasin close by.
We had just found the thick snake coiled up in the bow of my canoe, sleeping, after I flipped the canoe right-side up in preparation for launching on a North Florida lake. The snake opened wide its cotton-white mouth, and the...
February 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Crappie spawn begins; Spring has sprung
After getting put off by a windy, wet spring that Floridians are entirely unused to, we finally had a respite with the weather, and hit the spawning crappie in shallow lake water, at this late date of February 20. Josh Dickinson and I prowled the same shoreline where we’d found a few fish way back on Superbowl Sunday, but this time the crappie were there. And elsewhere on this lake; there...
1 tag
Crappie Season Arrives
Crappie season starts early in Florida when the first azalias bloom, about a month ahead of the fish we used to catch in Texas reservoirs. However, the crappie in our favorite lake east of Gainesville, Newnan’s Lake, haven’t quite got their act together. We had cold weather in January, but the lake’s dark water should be warming faster than most lakes, in this Florida sun. When...
January 2010
10 posts
2 tags
Camping on the Cinaruco River
After a long drive south across Venezuela, cities and towns petered out and we then crossed many miles of flat llanos grass country, with countless freshwater ponds dotting the countryside. Perhaps 30 klics from Columbia, we turned off into the vast Santos Luzardo National Park, also called Cinaruco-Capanaparo Park, and drove 40 klics of dirt road, crossing occasional 40-yard mudholes....
2 tags
Tournament awards and banquet
After a long day (dawn to dusk) of fishing in Venezuela’s final bass tournament of the year, we prepared ourselves for a big dinner and festivities. This was a real awards banquet, not what we were accustomed to in bass tournaments back in the States. This was not some tournament lakeside check-passing, by a grand-standing MC wearing suspenders and chewing tobacco—-with no alcohol...
2 tags
Game Time: The Big Tournament
Dawn patrol: In darkness and bright headlights, 70 contestant bass boats and their towing vehicles arrived and began launching into Lake Calabozo. We were utilizing a solid dirt peninsula, which was handy, since boats could be launched on both sides for several hundred yards. It was the start of a 21-hour day, if you counted the long dinner and awards ceremony, after 12 hours of fishing…But...
2 tags
Pre-fishing the big tournament
We spent three days pre-fishing Venezuela’s last big bass tournament of 2009, on Lake Calabozo—-just before competition arrived from all over the country. Contestants weren’t allowed to fish the lake for a week before this event, and expect to win the biggest trophies. But our hosts, Venezuela’s Bass Association, wanted to see Americans, especially pro-bass fishermen, fish their big...
2 tags
Series on Fishing Venezuela
We recently toured Venezuela on a fishing expedition and crossed the country by car and truck, all the way from the beach at Caracas Airport down close to the Columbian border. Our hosts, mostly Italian farmers and ranchers whose families settled here more than 50 years ago, knew just where to stop for good food. Or gasoline, which is now roughly six cents a gallon.
Venezuela is simply a...
1 tag
Florida springs now a haven for fish
Jumping out of a boat into frigid water requires serious purpose, including if your boat is sinking fast. Mine wasn’t, in fact it was perfectly dry. But I wanted to see first-hand what species of fish might be using one of Florida’s numerous springs for shelter from last week’s harsh winter weather. These springs pour (or sometimes more weakly, ooze 72 degree water all year....
1 tag
Dead Tarpon in the Suwannee
Following reports of at least 40 tarpon floating dead in the home canals near the mouth of the Suwannee River, a result of the past week of frigid weather, I launched the boat there yesterday and had a look. These canals are like a maze, unless you own a home there and learn the place. Anyway, I cruised a dozen canals in the afternoon, looking for tarpon.
I talked to several home-owners who...
1 tag
Dead Snook at Yankeetown
I cruised the Withlacootchee River this morning, after cleaning off a frosty windshield back in Gainesville, and making the drive. I went down to where this river empties into the Gulf of Mexico, taking stock of fish killed by the past week of chilly weather. And hoping not to see large numbers of dead snook, which is a tropical gamefish ill-suited to cope when icy weather arrives. At first it...
1 tag
Heading out tomorrow to find dead snook
Reports are coming in of dead snook along the Gulf side of Florida, so I’ll get the boat loaded this afternoon, charge up the cold boat battery, and head out tomorrow with the camera. This is the biggest freeze since 1989, so I’d better get some fish pictures. Here in Gainesville the temp was 17 degrees last night, a new record. And the tenth night of freezing weather. Not good for...
1 tag
