The fishing thread

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

The water in both the keys and Miami area was astonishingly clear. The keys also have no waves to speak of for miles around. The kids were in love and didn't want to leave. 

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

Probably a Roseate Spoonbill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roseate_Spoonbill_-_Myakka_River_State_Park.jpg

In reply to jharry3 :

It could've been one of them (pink in color). They're not supposed to be here, either.

We went to the neighborhood lake yesterday and the 7 year old caught several bluegill and a nice white crappie. I caught nothing except for well over 100' of fishing line spread over three different lines, including one ~40' long, very thick fluoro line, and each of them had some sort of rig on the end. A nice nearly new large brass spinner, a rubber spin bait rig, and a worm rig. I can't figure out why people give up so easily on their line once it's snagged. It really trashes up the water to have so much line in it. The only one that seriously fought me was the fluoro line and it just took a bit of an angle and some steady firm pulling. Another one of the lines was so long they must have cast from the other side of the lake.

I swear you could easily outfit a very full tackle box just recovering other people's abandoned gear. In fact, we kind of have.

The trash is another issue. You hope people are mostly like yourself and enjoy nature but I can't actually believe that with the number of worm tubs and empty tackle packages and such that I find lying around.

Although the crappie may not be huge, I'm pretty pleased with it - she caught it with no input from me. In fact I was kind of micromanaging her - not on purpose - and she asked me to go check on the other poles. HA! Then a few minutes later - bam - nice crappie.

A rare example where I took my boat out of the water at the end of the day and did the old "One Last Cast," and it actually worked.



Different day, got an 18" smallmouth on top water.

Then my brother got a 19" fish and was smug about it.



The general vibe of the fishing trips:

You never know what you're going to get when fishing. My 7 year old caught a little bluegill then a water snake took a liking to it and snatched it. Unfortunately for the snake the hook came out of the bluegill and hooked the snake. She reeled it in and was super excited. I got to figure out how to unhook a snake that's got the hook all the way in its mouth. Turns out a pair of hemostats gently pressed on its mouth encourages a snake to open up. Released back into the water unharmed. It was about 4 feet long give or take and very strong. 
 

then we spotted something orange - something that doesn't belong in a lake in Ohio - and I caught it on a small circle hook with bread:

Yes I believe that's an orange African cichlid, someone's aquarium fish probably outgrown its tank. It's about 10" long and beautiful. If we had a bucket with us I would have taken it home and tried to find a home for it. It's not going to live through the winter here. I released it back to the lake and will try again today with a bucket and aerator on hand. 

That's certainly an interesting day on the water!

I think that might be a Midas Chiclid, from Central America. Cool catch. 

As for the snake... I do not like danger noodles. That would be a big nope to the nope rope for me. 

If I can get the kids settled down we're going back to the lake with a bucket and bubbler to try to rescue the cichlid. He's such a pretty fish it seems a shame to let it die this winter. 

We have a ton of Mayan Cichlids here and they are fun to catch. Here's a bass from the canal beside the house a couple months ago. 

We spotted the cichlid again but I couldn't get him to take my bait. Maybe I trained him about hooks, maybe his mouth still hurts. We'll try again!

@grover: nice bass!

grover said:

We have a ton of Mayan Cichlids here and they are fun to catch. Here's a bass from the canal beside the house a couple months ago. 

what bait are y'all throwin'??? way nice bass....congrats!!!

Just loaded up on gear so me and my 5 year old can start fishing. Been 20+ years for me! Going tomorrow 

Kiddos first time fishing. She did a faceplant in the parking lot when she saw the fishing pole and got too excited, and there was some blood and a ton of tears.... she quickly got over it though! At 2.5 years old, she is getting help with literally every aspect... except the fun, she had that part down exactly right without any involvement from dad or grandma or grandpa. 

 

Just used a crawler on a jig head with a bobber. Pumpkinseed or pumpkinseed hybrid here. Only one we caught but it was about a 10 minute trip on our way out of town after the windiest weekend I can remember meant there was no fishing happening Friday-Sunday.

In reply to mtn :

So awesome! The smile tells it all. My kiddos had a heck of a weekend fishing. A friend of theirs that had wanted to catch fish but failed to so far finally made it to our place and we walked down to the lake. With some guidance he was landing bluegills like a pro. He wanted to catch bass too but the summer heat has really slowed down the bass catching in that lake. Then randomly we ran into them today and they joined us in our new creek chub fishing spot and he landed a few nice ones. 
 

But!! Today my 7 year old set a new personal best on a 9" creek chub which is just massive for a chub. It was a good fighter and she was stoked to have caught this monster that I had told her about previously. I had spotted it on a walk when I gradually tore up, balled up, and tossed in a whole loaf of bread in a little creek. Eventually this thing came out of the tunnel nearby and was terrorizing all the little chubs. I asked her if she wanted to target it and she said hey definitely. Today she was patient and skilled and casting into the tunnel and despite poor visibility (heavy rains this morning) she nailed that fish. It was super impressive. 

sorry for the bad pic, chubs are next to impossible to hang on to and we were hemmed in by some brush on one side and a swift creek on the other, perched on a concrete wall near the freeway. Quite a spot but dang it has the goods. 
 

then on the way back we stopped by a spot we've seen a few carp at but failed at catching them. I was ravenously hungry and needed to eat but we still had some worm on a tiny hook and 4 pound test. I said - let's just set the drag light and try. She gave it a few casts but the creek/puddle has a ton of brush around and over it so I finally offered to cast. I tossed it out there and a carp sucked it up right away. I handed her the rod and made sure to just coach her as best as I could and she landed this beast- again on 4 pound test and probably a #6 hook:

19" long and probably closing on 4 pounds. Nice fish. It was beautiful in person. I've been wanting to try a carp with this curry recipe I have but the water this fish came out of is mostly freeway runoff so I'm not on board with eating out of it. It's got black sediment on the bottom and often gets quite a bit of algae if it doesn't rain for a while so I think that's the wise choice. We let it go back to the puddle/creek. But she was beyond psyched to have a new species and a new biggest fish.