The Report from Spotted Tail

Before anything else, could you please say a prayer for my friend Rick DePaiva.  He needs some help right now, spiritual as much as anything else.

Upcoming Events-
On April 9 I’ll be giving fly tying lessons at Mosquito Creek Outdoors in Apopka, starting at noon. We’ll be tying wooly worms and wooly buggers. Come out and see us, and walk out with some new flies!

The fish of the week is the peacock bass. Or maybe the killifish. Read on to see why!

On Sunday Ramsey Cearley and his bride Cori, UPers both, left their seven month old son with her parents so they could spend six hours with me on the Mosquito Lagoon. Can you imagine!? Anyhow, we went looking for redfish, since we had a very lovely day. We got two dinks at the first spot. At the next spot, five or six handsome slot fish ate the bait. We went on a search mission after that, checking spots which had been productive- until Sunday.  But we didn’t get another bite. All the fish we caught were taken on chunks of mullet.

Fishing was good enough for Ramsey and Cori to get this double.

Monday morning at an unGodly hour I dragged my butt out of a nice warm bed to drive to Dania, where I met Joe Scheer and Alan Zaremba right on schedule at 7 AM. The idea was to catch peacock bass on fly, using a six-weight split bamboo fly rod that Joe gave to me several years back. Photos would be a bonus (see all the photos at this link).

The mission was accomplished early on.

Peacock bass are easy fish to catch. They hold on a spot and won’t leave. You keep throwing your bait at them until they get pissed off and bite it. Sometimes that’s a cast or two. Sometimes it’s 20 minutes. But unless they break you off you’re usually going to get any fish you bother to throw to. One of the successful flies was Yank’s Redfish Assassin. Yank, I know you’ll like seeing that!

Yank's Redfish Assassin is apparently also a peacock bass fly.

I don’t know how many we got. It was 15 or 20. We fished in upscale neighborhoods and the tropical vegetation was as beautiful as the fish were. Thanks Joe and Alex, it was a wonderful day.

Joe got this humpback.

Wednesday Ron Schoemer and his father-in-law Archie joined me for a day’s Mosquito Lagoon redfishing. We were having a bit of a hard time, netting only one trout in a couple hours, until Chris Myers invited us to fish near him. Then things picked up.

Ron got a slot red on a Johnson Minnow. Then Archie hooked, and lost, two fish on a RipTide Weedless Jig. Then Ron hooked and broke off another fish, using a Johnson Minnow. Then the fish lost interest in eating. We left and went to another spot.

The fish that were there weren’t interested in artificials, but we got two on mullet chunks. Then they stopped biting too.  At least Archie, a Great Lakes fisherman from Michigan, got his first red.

We saw quite a few reds after that, but did not manage another strike on any lure we tried.

Sadly, on Thursday my fisherman had to cancel at the last minute. I took care of other business.

On Friday son Alex and I went out on the Atlantic looking for cobia and tripletail. We stopped at the bait shop first and it had been turned into Port parking. What’s up with that? We bought two dozen jumbo shrimp at another, nearby establishment at the north end of Banana River Drive. The attendant was hands down the best looking bait shop attendant I have ever seen, a very attractive woman. But I digress.

We launched the boat and got out of the Port. It was too windy for the Mitzi, with waves coming over the bow. I had Alex sit on the poling tower and we looked for cobia until almost 1 PM, going out as far as three miles. We found a bunch of birds diving over breaking fish. We boated numerous bluefish. The smoker is heating up as I write this, as we kept six.

However, we saw only one cobia, which we did not even get a cast off to, and zero tripletail. When I got home I used the bait to make Camarao Paulista. It was delicious.

RECIPE -Heat a couple, three tablespoons of olive oil in a cast iron frying pan. Add plenty of crushed/minced garlic. When the garlic starts to brown throw the shrimp in. They don’t like the hot oil and will try to jump back out so use a pot lid to keep them in there until they stop kicking. When one side starts to brown flip them over and start to brown the other side. Don’t overcook them.

Small shrimp you just eat whole. I prefer to peel and eat the jumbos, though.

This morning (Saturday) I drove to Lake Ashby, where I was reminded that the size of the fish often makes no difference to the fisherman, especially when that fisherman is a child. A wonderful human being by the name of Bonnie Cary, a naturalist for Volusia County, put on an Old Florida Fishing Day for local kids.

A few of the fishermen canepolin' at Lake Ashby.

Bonnie and helpers cut bamboo poles from a friend’s yard, strung them with line, rigged each with a bobber, split shot, and small barbless Aberdeen hook, and invited the kids. Thirty or so came, with parents. It was wonderfully uncomplicated fishing. We used bread and earthworms for bait (it’s been a LONG time since this boy strung a worm on a hook. They still work.). We caught killifish. The biggest wouldn’t stretch out to four inches. The kids went nuts, they were SO excited!

This girl had never caught a fish before.

A lot of them had never been fishing before, but they sure want to go again. It was really fun. And I’m happy to report no killifish were filleted during the writing of this report. Thanks Bonnie, Rick, Mike, Bob, Susan, and Bill for organizing and volunteering for this event.

Look at that smile!

Embrace simplicity.

Life is great and I love my work!

Life is short- go fishing!

John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com/

All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2011. All rights are reserved.