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 Northeast Florida. We would hopefully load up on tasty mullet and tilapia, the latter thick in the springs as recently as March. This is primitive fishing; judging by arrowheads found on this very patch of shore and water, the ancients fired their arrows at these fish for thousands of years.

We met up at the boat ramp and headed out, watching mullet all around us in the afternoon light. I volunteered to drive the boat and we idled slowly along, Ed and his girlfriend Crystal Ruland firing away. She’s been shooting a bow for about six months, and Ed certainly longer than that. Ed takes clients out for alligator, gar and a variety of saltwater fish that aren’t protected with gamefish status, such as sheepshead, drum and stingray, which they clean and save for clients.

Ed coaxed me into picking up the bow, so I climbed to the bow of the jonboat and nocked an arrow. Ahead of me, mullet raced back and forth, some of them actually zig-zagging. Ye Gods! How are you supposed to hit these fish? Ed said to lead them about a foot…A few minutes went by, but so far, we’d had no luck. Ed estimates that for every hundred shots fired, his clients get about six fish. The water defracts each image, and the fish is actually a little lower than it appears. So, you have to aim low. Combine that with a moving target, and it isn’t easy. I hadn’t picked up a bow in at least 15 years, though once I won an archery contest competing against a bunch of Texas outdoor writers. Shooting at stationary targets in an indoor shooting range…

But then I noticed there seemed to be, sometimes, just the right moment for letting the arrow fly at these fish. That one perfect moment in time. Pass up the medium-sized mullet that flit around and make very narrow targets, and wait for a big one. After missing my first two shots, I was amazed when I fired at two converging fish running along beside each other, really a double-wide target. Whap! The arrow thumped into the side of the bigger fishes chest, and we soon had a big mullet on board. Golden-fried mullet on the table suddenly became a viable option on the menu. Crystal didn’t mind posing with our trophy-sized mullet. 

We toured the spring run, past floating clumps of algae that only grow worse each year, feeding off nutrients. The mullet often ducked beneath the algae for cover, and didn’t reappear. Twilight fell, and we cranked up the two portable generators, lighting up the water.

Then the action started. Using the electric motor, we cruised along a stretch of algae that must have been 100 yards long. It was nock the arrow, pull, aim, loose. Over and over, fire at this one, now that one. We reeled each arrow frantically back to the boat for another shot, as mullet fled in every direction.

 Our fingers became tired, we fired so many arrows. At one point, Crystal and I scored a double-header, both of us hitting mullet in the head at the same instant. I had pulled down on a big one cruising straight ahead of the boat, and it didn’t matter if I was high or low, the arrow had 14 inches of target, as long I was lined up on him.  

 Regrettably we found no fat, tasty tilapia waddling around in the shallows, where they would have made very broad targets. We had missed their spawning season, where they dig up huge nests in the shallows, impossible to miss.

The generators buzzed loudly and we prowled up and down the spring run until 10 p.m. and to our surprise, found fewer and fewer targets. I think the mullet were rafting up in mid-creek under the floating mats of algae, well-protected from night herons, egrets and perhaps otters. And our flying arrows. So, we called it a night. Ed and his Diana the huntress girlfriend had to drive back to Orlando, almost two hours. We will meet again soon for a night on Tampa Bay, where Ed has many places where saltwater fish prowl the shallows. Stay tuned.  That trip and story is in the October issue of Florida Sportsman magazine and I will post pics of the fine stingrays we shot some time in October. 

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 big fangs were a terrible sight…The owner of the lakeside house where I keep the canoe dutifully scooped up the big snake with an 8-foot dipnet and released it, but dropped it in the water just about where I launch the canoe, a soft spot between hard cypress knees. The thrashing snake angrily dove underwater.

So, I dragged the canoe 20 feet to the right, out on the tipsy floating dock that tends to submerge slightly, when you stand on it. I piled in my fishing gear and eased into the canoe, but was stranded—-the stern was still stuck on the dock, my weight pressing it down. I pushed straight left towards the water with a paddle, harder, harder, and then too late—-I flipped into that cold black water. The canoe somehow righted itself, and no equipment was lost, but I was submerged in blackness with that big snake close by.

All I could think about was the Irish lad in the movie Lonesome Dove, who while crossing the Nueces River in Texas, wound up with a water moccasin clinging to his face. (He died in about 10 minutes). Perhaps this snake had other things on his mind, however, for I never saw or felt him while climbing fast onto the dock. Sputtering and dripping wet, unable to believe it after 15 years of safe canoeing, I trudged up to the house. However, the owner had no clothes that would fit me. So, it was drive back home nine miles, change clothes, and try again.

This time it worked. The canoe launched and I eventually caught 12 crappie on artificials, more than enough for dinner.

The fish were hiding and spawning behind cypress tree trunks, with low-hanging branches draped in Spanish moss—-more suitable cover for snakes. But these reptiles are a little sluggish in this chilly weather, not up in the trees just yet. If a big one had dropped from a tree into the canoe, it would have turned real ugly, but that hasn’t happened yet. Several big gators were startled into life nearby, but we’re used to seeing them. They don’t attack canoes, merely thrash and splash and give us a start at times. I also heard a gator drumming in the water, a mating call that travels quite a distance.

That was enough excitement for one day. It would have been safer to buy a box of fishsticks at the store. However, with the kind of day I was having, I would have been caught in a supermarket crossfire between the store’s manager and two armed robbers.

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 were many reports of limits the day before.

Josh caught a few with the jig and cork rig, but then unwrapped a 4-weight flyrod made of split bamboo, a delicate rig he hasn’t tried yet on trout in Montana. It’s more of a panfish rod. To my shock, he began catching the biggest crappie I’ve seen landed. We landed 27 fine crappie, a mean pickerel and Josh nailed a jumping 2-pound bass on his light rig. His last fish was a mongo crappie of 1 pound, 14 ounces, heavy with eggs. He said he hated to take that one out of the gene pool, but it was by far his biggest ever. This lake (Lochloosa) is said to have 3-pound crappie, which would be fascinating to see.

Anyway, we eased the boat up and down the shoreline with great satisfaction, catching fish without being pressured by the weekend crowd. No one saw us landing these fish. We released 17, with about 80 percent of them holding eggs. We kept five each for dinner. Since these are bigger fish, we didn’t need many. And we’d rather see these fish pull off a successful spawn. February 28, the full moon, is said to be the date these fish are waiting for. So, next weekend’s action (and harvest) will probably be huge.

Back at the dock, we noticed a small group of gawkers and hangers-on at the marina, watching a lady weighing an impressive crappie. We stopped unloading the boat for a moment, and sidled over. Her fish weighed 1 pound, 14 ounces, and there was jubilation. Josh didn’t care, but I pulled his crappie out of the bucket and decided to weigh it, if for no other reason, to report it’s weight here. The woman with the fish looked startled at our fish, then visibly worried, when we walked up with the fish. Turns out there is a tournament going on, with respectable money and prizes for February’s biggest crappie on this lake. When Josh’s fish hit the scales, and weighed the exact same weight, the woman seemed crestfallen. A tie? She then asked if we were in the tourney. When I professed ignorance of said tournament she was jubilant, throwing her arms around me in a tight hug. And with others nearby…She said, “If you only knew how hard I fished for this crappie, with a broken canepole!” I told her our big crappie was caught with a flyrod, but it did little good. She was in the money, and we were mere bystanders.

However, February has another solid week of action, and her lead is tenuous on this fine fishing lake. Stay tuned.

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 these fish do turn on in shallow water, they’ll be lurking everywhere, even (this year) up in the cypress trees, where rainwater has collected, thanks to El Nino and the rain we get from every cold front.

However. These fish still haven’t turned on like they should, where in the previous two springs I have caught and released up to 72 of these tasty fish during a busy afternoon. Today we caught only three in the afternoon, after making many casts. Last week on two trips, I caught eight and then six on short afternoon trips, enough for fried crappie dinners. Which is better than it sounds. Ate them hot on the back porch, still steaming, coated in cornmeal and red pepper Cajun spice. For those who haven’t tried it, crappie is the best freshwater fish in the southern half of North America.

Today, Josh Dickinson, pictured above, took his three crappie home for dinner. As a bonus we collected four dozen tangerines hanging low from a neighbor’s tree over the lake—-without getting out or tipping over our canoe. Such is life in Florida.

Tomorrow I’ll scout and fish Lochloosa Lake, which is 20 miles farther away, but producing limits (25 per angler) of crappie for some anglers. And the fish are bigger in that lake…

Stay tuned.