A Ho-Hum Report
Thank you for reading this Ho-Hum Report. Got out three times in two days, slightly unusual.
Most of the bass I got were around this size, a St. Johns RIver fish.
Monday-
wanted to float the Econ. Foolishly, I deferred to the weather forecast, which was for clouds all day, with a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms. Not wanting to get caught on the river in a storm, I decided to go to Lake Mills instead.
I’d never caught much in Lake Mills, so the six or seven bass I got there was a new record for me, even if they were all twelve inchers. Culprit worms, gotta love ’em. Of course the sun came out fifteen minutes after I launched the canoe.
While out there, an idea came to me- “You should go to the St. Johns River.” Heck yes, I should. Twenty minutes later, the canoe was on the van. Fifteen minutes after that, the canoe was in the garage and the Bang-O-Craft’s trailer was attached to the car. Twenty minutes after that, I was parking the van at CS Lee park, after which we headed right to the mouth of the Econ.
The water is LOW. The boat bounced off the bottom for part of the way. That low water certainly kept the boat traffic down.
The thought was to fish for bluegills and redbellies. All I brought was ultralight tackle, both spin and fly (although the fly poles never got touched). They were still rigged for shad with tandem crappie jigs, so that’s what was used. About the sixth cast, FISH ON! Turned out to be a bass, only slightly larger than the Lake Mills fish.
But there were lots of them. And periodically they erupted onto the surface in a feeding frenzy, feeding on what looked to be baby shad. They would only hit the pink jig. The one with the white head was variously paired with black, white, chartreuse, and clear-with-silver-glitter tails and never took a fish. I finally tried a 1.5-inch Creme Sassy Shad- they would hit that, too.
A large tilapia was foul-hooked in the dorsal fin. It was quite a tussle until the fin tore and the jigs came flying back at me.
Those bass put up a much better account for themselves on the tiny tackle than they would with my usual bass gear. At one point I got a bass double, too- one on each bait- something that had never happened to me before.
So I had a fishing twofer, and it wasn’t even Tuesday yet! Which was good, because…
…Tuesday
found me and the ‘yak on Mosquito Lagoon. Bad news for lagoon lovers- the water is turning brown again, I fear. In five hours exactly four redfish were seen, with zero chance of a shot at any of them. My only fish was a puffer. At least it was fly-caught. ‘Twas a beautiful day, though.
Wednesday
when we got home there was a message from Seminole County on my answering machine telling me that toxic blue-green algae was coming out of the Little Econlockhatchee and to avoid contact with the water. I had intended to float the Econ on Thursday or Friday, so the message put the kabosh on that idea.
It’s great that our public servants are taking such good care of our water quality. Every decision is only based on money, it’s so sad.
Thursday
was spent in large part waiting for a phone call (!) and Friday was filled with errands that didn’t get done Thursday. Friday night we took in a concert by the Orlando Concert Band. Boom! Crash!
That’s my Ho-Hum Report. As always, thanks for reading!
Every day is a blessing. Don’t waste it- Go fishing! Go paddling! Go bicycling! Stay active!
John Kumiski
www.johnkumiski.com
www.spottedtail.com
www.spottedtail.com/blog
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