I live in Port Charlotte, FL on a canal with access to the Myakka River near El Jobean, FL and Charlotte Harbor. I own a boat and I love to fish. I'm new to Florida so I'm learning a new kind of fishing and I thought a record of fish caught, weather, tides, etc. for each trip would help me to learn quicker. That record is what you'll find in my blog which I post as soon as I possibly can so check before you're going out, my success or failure might help make your trip more productive.
High Tide: 7:45 AM 1.2 FT Low Tide: 2:30 PM 0.2 FT Wind: 10-20 SE Air Temp: 64/82 Water Temp: 72 Clarity: clear
Judy, Kate, James and I left the dock again at about 10:00 AM on a much different day than yesterday. It was sunny because the wind had blown the fog away early. It was too windy to stop at the bridge so we banged our way through the waves out to the Myakka Cutoff to hide in the calm inside the mangroves.
We fished there all day with no fish making it into the boat. Only 2 big hits on our live bait to mention, both seemed like nice fish, reds would be my guess, but neither was hooked for more than a few seconds.
But, I did learn something new about the bait I've been calling "sardines." They are not sardines at all, although they look similar when you look at photos online, but are actually menhaden. I discovered my mistake while researching a shrimp like crustacean that comes out of the menhaden's mouth when they die. It is quite large compared to the fish and looks a little like something you'd see in a science fiction movie. Everything I could find online says the fish is not bothered by the parasite but both me and my neighbor have noticed it seems to be much more difficult to keep them alive lately, since we started to notice this bug.
I sent an email to a biologist that helped me determine the cause of a fish kill in our canal back in June. I hope she can tell me a little more about the menhaden bug, if I do learn more I will let you know.
Our trip to the cutoff didn't produce anything for the dinner table, but I know it helped everyone reach some better plane mentally. Kate got one hell of a nap, James finished what must have been a good book and Judy was the one to utter that common, among fishermen, line "one-more-cast" at least 12 times for that extra half hour on the water. After a wet, rough ride home we got into the dock by about 4:00 PM, another great day on the water.
