Shads and Otters Report

Hi everyone, thanks for reading the shads and otters report.

The astute reader may remember that last Thursday I picked up the Bang-O-Craft from its obedience training session. Sunday morning I had time to take it out for a spin on the St. Johns, CS Lee Park. Although I had a spin rod, I didn’t intend to fish. Ran up to the mouth of the Econ. There was fishy activity there. I got a shad, on a Road Runner, on my second cast.

I put the boat up on the bank and commenced to casting. Yes, I forgot all about the intent not to fish. Fish were breaking all around, but no bites were forthcoming. I cut off the Road Runner and the crappie jig (I was using a tandem rig) and replaced them with two Creme Spoiler Shad 1.5 inch. It was a stroke of unadulterated genius. Or some fortunate happenstance. Pick one.

I started hitting shad almost every cast, and three times got two at once. I thought I was back in 1985. No one else was there. That went on for well over an hour. Then the Fishing Gods flipped the switch and that was that. I ran the boat a little bit and then loaded it up, quite pleased with the way the morning played out.

Monday morning found me driving to Mosquito Lagoon, Bang-O-Craft in tow. The motor started right up. Ran great to the fishing spot. Worked the fish hard, was rewarded with two undersized seatrout. When I’d had enough, I tried starting the motor. It wouldn’t start. I tried over and over. No start.

I was pissed. I had unkind things to say about Ahoy Marine. The wind was howling. I put the anchor out so I could try to troubleshoot the problem without blowing away.

After taking the cowling off, I examined the motor closely. It was then I noticed that on-off switch was in the “off” position. Prior to the recent carburetor rebuild, when I wanted to kill the running motor, I’d just pull the choke out and the motor would stall. This day, that didn’t work, so I switched the motor off. Since I didn’t switch it back on, it refused to start hours later, when I had forgotten all about it. I flipped the switch, pulled the cord. It started immediately.

Sometimes I am so dumb… I apologize to Ahoy Marine for all those unkind things I said!

Thursday morning Rodney Smith and I hooked up at Tosohatchee. Our intent was to hike, in hope of finding the virgin cypress trees. We started wandering through the woods, enjoying the other trees.

We came to a cypress tree that was bigger than the others. Debate ensued as to whether or not it was in fact what we were looking for. The tree was growing at the edge of a wide spot in a creek. We spotted an otter in the creek. The otter also spotted us.

The otter acted like it hadn’t ever seen anything from genus Homo. It swam back and forth, stopped in front of us, climbed up on the bank, and generally examined us closely. Having seen quite a few otters through the years, its behavior amazed me. They don’t usually hang around after spotting you!

The camera I had was equipped with my landscape lens, of course. It was the best opportunity I will ever have to photograph an otter and I had the wrong equipment. That didn’t make the experience any less incredible.

We found a still bigger cypress tree afterwards. It was anticlimactic. We hiked back to the car and went our separate ways. On the way home I called Alex, who met me at the house. We hooked up the Bang-O-Craft and drove to the St. Johns.

We went to Sunday’s hot spot. There were two boats there, but no fish. Alex has a spot he likes. We went there, found some fish breaking. We got a few crappie on a crappie jig and the Spoiler Shad. I couldn’t get one on a fly.

We went up the Econ to a spot I like. Alex got two shad and a few crappie. I got a few crappie and a shad, everything on the crappie jigs. By this time it was pushing 5 PM, so we called it good and packed it in.

Congratulations to Alex and Allison, who are getting married Saturday!

That’s the shads and otters report. Thanks for reading!

Every day is a blessing. Don’t waste it- Go fishing! Go paddling! Take a walk! Stay active!

John Kumiski
www.johnkumiski.com
www.spottedtail.com
www.spottedtail.com/blog

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