Surf and Fishing Report 10/4/2014

We took a drive down to Matanzas Inlet to got shelling, surfing and fishing. The coquina is really fine and can get pretty think at this beach (North side of the inlet). La and the kiddoroosters went out the second sand bar to catch the breaking waves. After a little bit, I saw them paddling back in pretty quickly. They said they saw a shark in the lineup and calmly came back in. The tide was coming in at the same time, so the kids found another, even more fun diversion - what they've named the "Lazy River". It's really the trough of the last sandbar before the high tide line. As the tide comes back in, the waves start to fill it back in and as it drains, you get a steady flow back to the low point. The kids ride their boards on the current and I would say have even more fun than they do when surfing. I had the surf gear and was pounding the trough between the second and third sandbars - but I got nothing. I brought out the cast net and made some casts to see what was running just offshore (inside the waves). I caught a bucket full for finger mullet (and let all but seven small ones back in the water - I kept the seven to use as bait later). I asked Noe if she wanted to cast and she caught one!!! Lastly - I saw some fish that were not mullet hanging right where the water and shore met. They were really small pompano. I hope this means their bigger siblings are on their way back down south. Another great beach day in Florida!!!

Culprit

I just downloaded the pictures from La's iphone, so I have more pictures to tie back to some of the more recent posts. This is the oyster patch that shredded the cast net this past weekend. I personally think a smaller diameter cast net drives better casting technique. I'll stick with the small nets.

Fishing Report 9/28/2014

We went to the beach to fish today. I started out with the surf rod, but after not getting any bites for a while (nobody was, and there were more than a few people out fishing), I switched to the flyrod. I tied on a blue "surf candy" type epoxy head fly that was made using blue yard - I had those needlefish targeted... I had one take the fly and get it's teeth caught up in the yarn - I got it to the beach and just as I was going to pick it up and get the fly out of it's mouth, it let go and swam off (leaving me high and dry without a picture of fish in hand). I know what type of fly to use now, so I'll rectify the issue and get a photo of one taken on the fly. I also know that these are 'needlefish' and that most people think of them as a waste of time. I like to think of them as opportunities when other fish that chase flies are not around. While I was on the rocks, I saw a ton of finger mullet swimming in the surfline. I wasn't going to stop flyfishing for those, but I did stop for the school of large ones I saw bunkered down near the rocks. I went back to where I left my gear, grabbed the cast net (good thing I fixed that net yesterday...) and asked the kids if they wanted to check out what I was about to do. I netted seven good sized mullet in the first (and only) throw to that big mullet school. I gave the net to Marlon and he was able to get two nets full!!! Good day at the beach!!!

Fishing Report 9/27/2014

We spend the afternoon at the jetties fishing. The wind was howling - so much so that the fishing suffered. The mullet were running hard, so I cast a few times and bucketed over 50 finger mullet. I let the kids study them up close and we released them back to swim with the rest of the school that didn't move too far away (again because of the wind). I did see a smaller school of much larger mullet - but I didn't have a clear shot at them. And with the really small net we have, you have to be dead on target and those big mullet were cruising. I did rip the net on an oyster encrusted rock - about a 16" tear - more on that in a second. Marlon was the only one to catch a fish with a hook and line - this is a yellow stripe snapper. Yet another different species we've caught at the jetties. This place has always been pretty cool to fish. After the fishing session, I figured I needed to fix the torn net. It was a lot of trouble, but it's all patched up now.

Fishing Report 8/17/2014 Part 2

Nice Florida sunset. For the past several nights, as I've done errands in the evenings, I would shine a headlamp beam over the water and the mullet would explode - much in the same way the Asian Carp go nuts on the TV shows. I figured fish that eat mullet would be swimming around in the mix also, but no matter what I pitched - surface poppers that look like mullet, popping corks with DOA shrimp, flies, rocks and cuss words - I got nothing. Well - I broke out Marlon's cast net and I caught what was swimming around. Mullet - several, and some twice as big as this guy, and a Needlefish. I felt like I had cheated in a way - but that feeling didn't last long.

Fishing Report 8/6/2014

Caught two of these Silver Mullet with Marlon's cast net (harder than it sounds - I bought the net for him to learn with - it's only 3' in diameter... you pretty much have to be right on target).Noe found a bunch of these coquina clams. Oh - this was at the northern side of the Matanzas Inlet - we paid $6 and got to drive on the beach to an uncrowded spot with our own break!!! I didn't break out the surf rod because of the stuff in the next few posts.

Hooked SUP Fishing near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

Saturday morning we took the armada to one of the beaches on the Southern end of the Chesapeake Bay. The wind was from the South-South West so it was pretty flat for us. La went for a long paddle and I anchored to keep an eye on the kids (who were trolling for plankton with some nets we made) and to cast a line further out and still use lighter tackle. I caught a few croaker while out on the Hooked SUP. I tried laying a crab line out with chicken neck on it and when checking on it, I saw the target I was hoping for - baby pompano. After catching the croaker and transferring them to Marlon on the Grom paddleboard to take back to the beach to our specimen bucket, I paddled back to the beach to try my hand at catching the pomps on a tenkara rod. After you take a few minutes to adjust, you begin to notice all kinds of small fish hovering in the shallows (to not get eaten I presume). Between Marlon throwing the cast net and me using the tenkara rod with #16 hook, we brought a baby bluefish that had a semi-circular chunk missing out of it's back (almost something's lunch), some anchovy type fish and several small pomps ranging from very small to almost edible size. I didn't end up paddling out too far since I was hanging out with the kids, but I can see how paddling out to deeper water, anchoring and throwing out a rig with a bigger hook could lead to a much harder tug-o-war match with a piscine competitor. We had a blast and all this made me miss living in Virginia Beach even more than I already did.

Carp Wrestling - NOT

The wind died down today and the temperature was just about right for paddling. We loaded up the truck and hit BeaverDam Reservoir. We had ambitions for catching carp - flyfishing, hand netting and in a cast net - but those suckers were no where to be found. We did see a Great Blue Heron and a bunch of what I believe to be baby carp (swam around in large schools - about a month after we saw the carp spawning). La paddled our Starboard Blend - I had the fishing crate up on the nose and it looked pretty fast in the water. After a couple of hours, we decided to pack it up - darn carp skunked us!!!!

Practicing for the Big Show

The big show"down" with some carp!!! Oh yeah!!! I brought the old cast net out - figured it was time to get the kids back on this old horse. This time around, they were throwing the roundee like old pros. Getting them ready to make an amphibious assault on some carp at Beaverdam Reservoir. Watch out carp - we're coming for you... After practice, we went down to Lake Newport and caught a few fish and some something-something... More on that later.