Everglades 2010, Take Two

Well, after the success of my first trip to the Everglades of 2010, I couldn't help but have another go. It was nearing the end of summer and I knew I wasn't going to have another chance until next year. I was limited on time on the first trip and only fly fished for cichlids for about 45 minutes. This ate away at me for weeks afterwards until finally...I couldn't take it anymore.

I loaded up a kayak in the back of the Jeep, grabbed my gear, and drove the 3.5 hours down to Florida City early one Saturday morning. I launched the yak at 8:00 am sharp and went to town in the same canal I'd caught fish in before.

I certainly wasn't prepared for the best day of fly fishing I've had to date. Over the course of the day I landed:

14 Mayan Cichlids and 1 Oscar (not shown):


1 Butterfly Peacock Bass (my 1st on the fly. Hit like a ton of bricks):


8 Fat gills:


And...*drum roll*...43 Largemouth Bass (none over 2lbs):


The overwhelming heat and sun got to me around 4:30 that afternoon. The wind had picked up at that point too making it difficult to control the yak and cast at the same time so I headed back. While I was paddling back to the Jeep, I realized that I hadn't eaten anything all day and I was sunburned to boot. I made it back to the hotel, dragged the yak into the room, ordered a pizza, and collapsed on the bed.

After gorging myself on super supreme stuffed crust, I was feeling quite a bit better. Some storms that had been floating around had worked their way offshore, so I decided to go make a few casts back down at the same canal before it got dark(it was only a few miles from the hotel). I stopped by a gas station to buy some aloe for my terrible sunburn, but found that they wanted 18$ for a tiny little bottle of it. I decided to just suffer.

Once down at the canal, I walked a few hundred yards from the Jeep and started casting. A dumb fly kept lighting on my face, so my casting resembled that of someone with a terrible twitch. I also noticed a few mosquitoes trying to bite my ankles. I proceeded to just brush them off and keep fishing. Soon, I started catching fish! I also realized that I had no way to keep them so I walked back to the Jeep to grab a small cooler. It was gradually getting later in the evening and I got to watch a beautiful sunset over the Everglades as I continued to walk further and further down the canal, catching fish as I did so. I started having to swat my legs and neck more and more often as I began to accumulated a few more blood sucking followers. I kept fishing and catching and didn't really realize that I was in trouble until it was too late. With one final cast, I looked up to see that the sun had sunk far below the horizon, and that all its rays were now just a dim glow. That's when I noticed the roar. I looked down to see my arms and legs were solid black with mosquitoes. I practically flew up the canal bank, secured my fly to the rod, and grabbed my cooler. I've got to get back to the Jeep before I...

My thoughts drifted off as I realized that I'd managed to walk over a mile from the Jeep. By now, the deer flies had begun swarming my face. With fly rod and cooler in had, I did the only thing I could do: Run screaming like a little girl.

With a mile time that could have qualified me for the summer Olympics, I made it back to the Jeep sweaty, bloody, and nearly crying with a mixture of pain and joy. I quickly threw my gear in the cab, hopped in, and drove off down the highway with the windows down, trying to flush the bugs out of the cab. Once back at the hotel, a combination of severe sunburn and hundreds of bug bites lead to a fever. I can safely say, however, that I haven't slept that well in a LONG time.

I got up Sunday morning and fished the canal again, however, not with the same amount of success. I still caught 5 more Cichlids and 10 more Largemouth. I noticed that cichlid fishing is much like bluegill fishing in that the bite is on fire early morning/late evening and whenever it gets cloudy. The Mayans put up an unbelievable fight and even with the 5 wt I was having trouble keeping them out of the sunken timber and structure. Two of them managed to get onto the reel as well. The biggest ones were between 10 and 11 inches.

From what I've read (and seen), the cichlid fishing isn't all that spectacular in the summer months because of higher water levels in the canals. Apparently late winter/spring is the time to go when water levels are low. One of these days I'll have to escape from school and make another trip in the springtime.

Deer Spotlighting

Well, I managed to slack off for a few months now in my writing (it's what, October now?). I figure with the way I'm going, any chances of catching up and posting recent events have been dashed. So what's the rush? Anywho, let's take a trip down memory lane and visit more of July.

In July, Along with Photopoints and Dove trapping, I got a chance to do deer spotlight counts. Basically...It's something I'd do for fun, even if I wasn't getting paid. It requires 3 people to do the surveys. One to drive, and two to sit on the back of the truck and shine the lights/use the rangefinder on the deer. Every time a deer is spotted, the driver stops and takes a GPS point. The two people on the back get a range and bearing on the deer along with sex and number of deer. The driver writes down all this information which is later plugged into a computer. So what's the problem with riding around the woods shining deer all night?
Nothing really. Except for the 'all night' part.
It's understood in the outdoor community that all wildlife, particularly game animals, keep terrible hours. Ask any hunter or fisherman when the best time to go out is and the answer will always be some God awful hour of the morning or long into the darkness of night. Most animals are active right after sun up and right before dark. Deer, however, are the exception to this rule because deer...are crazy. They generally don't come out until it is FAR into the night, long after even the most avid hunter has left the stand, driven home, showered, eaten, and climbed into bed. Sure one might see a deer in the middle of the day. But these are simply the insomniacs of the deer herd. The rest are hiding in the bushes until the earth has rotated a full 180 degrees. It is because of this, that we do deer surveys at night.
Oh, and because their eyes glow and are easy to see. But it's mainly because they're crazy.

Deer surveys started at 8:00 pm and lasted until about 2:00 or 3:00 am. For some reason (and I never got a straight answer as to why) FWC stopped conducting surveys on Three Lakes. Instead, the surveys are done at Triple N Ranch, Bull Creek, and Fort Drum WMA's. All of these areas are at least a 45 min drive from Three Lakes so my hours usually started about 7 and ended around 4.

Over the course of the month, I help conduct about 8 different surveys and I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them. Every one was different and it was exciting to see the different bucks and admire them as they stared, zombie like, back at the spotlight. By far, the biggest were located on Ft. Drum back toward the Turnpike. I found that the reason for this was because it was close to 2 miles through swamp from the entrance to the back of the WMA and vehicles weren't allowed. Meaning, that one had to walk to the back.
Unfortunately, I was unable to snap any pictures of the deer. Even if I had tried, my flash probably would have ruined it. Not the mention the fact that they were usually anywhere from 80-300 yards away from the truck.

The hours certainly managed to take their toll on me. I would usually do an 8-4 during the day, rest and then head back at 7 until 2 or 3. Rest, and get back up to work at 8 again. Luckily, FWC won't pay interns overtime so I'd usually hit my 40 hours for the week very early and then have a few days off. I did, at least, try to take it relatively easy during the days. I was really only whooped if we had to do a prescribed burn the day before a survey. I was able to snap a picture of something I'd only read about previously. A Pyrocumulus cloud:
Apparently its produced from large amounts of smoke. Under the right conditions, water vapor from the smoke manages to boil up into a storm. So, in a sense, we're busy raining ourselves out when we burn. Kinda counterproductive, huh?

Attack of the ninja turkeys!

July began the month of dove trapping. The state issued our office 30 bands and it was my responsibility to set the traps and band these doves. I've always been aware that doves aren't exactly high up on the intelligence scale. In fact, I was certain the scale went: Chimps, dolphins, dogs, parrots, horses, cows, mullet, and doves.After seeing and setting the traps, I came to the realization that doves are actually dumber than originally believed. The dove trap is a square cage with tunnels on the sides. One places seed in a line leading through the tunnel and into the cage....and that's it. The doves follow the seed in and can't figure out how to go back through the tunnel. The trap follows the same principle as a crawfish trap, but I've at least seen crawfish escape before. I've now had to revise the intelligence scale to this: Chimps, dolphins, dogs, 90% of the people encountered in Wal-mart, parrots, horses, cows, mullet, an oak tree, a brick, ABC's: The View, and finally doves.

Bands were put on the right leg and each band had its own ID number. I had to check each bird's molt stage, age, and sex. After this they were free to go...sometimes. On three separate occasions I released a dove only to have it sit in my hand and not fly away. I had to drop it in order for it to realize it could escape.
I set traps at four different locations around the WMA and had to check them every hour because of the heat. After all, no one likes roasted dove....well...maybe...but you get my point. My first day of trapping produced 10 dove and I had high hopes for knocking out the entire month's worth of banding in under a week. After that day, I never caught more than 3 in a day. I point the blame to turkeys. Ninja turkeys at that.

Over the course of a few weeks, the turkeys figured out that every time a truck drove up, seed magically appeared around the traps. After the truck left, they were free to eat all the seed around the trap and as far into the tunnel as their necks could reach. With that, they'd slip silently back into the bushes to await my next hour's visit. Each and every time I'd show up...the seed was gone and I'd have to re-bait. I knew it was turkey from the tracks. I just couldn't catch them in the act. At one point, I waited only 15 minutes rather than an hour only to find that they'd sneaked in, eaten all the seed, and disappeared (like a ninja) back into the bushes.
The abundance of turkeys brings me to my next point: Turkey hunters not trying hard enough.

I was assigned the (riveting) task of logging ALL comments on the back of hunter check cards from the previous hunting seasons. Yes, all of them. Even the: "Why the $@%* did you cut down so many trees?!" and the "Found some *%&hole in my treestand this morning!".

Several clever hunters had the audacity to write: "Stock with more turkey". If they only realized all they have to do is park their truck, act like their throwing seed, hide, and wait, then they'd have a turkey in under 15 minutes. Three Lakes is actually WELL known for its Osceola Turkey hunting and I've probably seen more turkey than I have deer since I've been here. Therefore, I feel I must place these whining turkey hunters on my intelligence scale. Somewhere between the mullet and an oak tree. Or maybe just below the brick.

To my surprise, the traps actually caught more than just Mourning Doves. They also caught Ground Doves:
And one (slightly angry) Mockingbird:
On a side note, I'm busy compiling a list of all creatures one might encounter that bite. I'm pleased to announce the the Mockingbird has been added to this list.

Overall, the dove trapping proved to be quite fun when I wasn't being sabotaged by ninja turkeys. I was almost bummed when I caught and banded my 30th dove since I knew it would be right back to spraying for exotics again.