Speck Fishing and Mullet Snatching: Port St. Joe Part I

The next few posts will be my most recent trip to Port St. Joe and will be broken up into a few parts.

Woke up at some ungodly hour of the morning last Wednesday and made the 3.5 hour drive down to Port St. Joe with my dad. Despite being zombie-like from the lack of sleep the night before, I was really excited about making this trip. Prior to this, I hadn't been to St. Joe in over six years.

We arrived sometime around 8 am and decided that our first stop would be the St. Joseph's State Park. Even though it had been six years since the last time I had visited, few things had changed throughout the small town. A few new houses, new stores had opened, old stores had closed, and that was about it. The state park was just how I remembered it. We soon launched the kayaks and paddled out over the grass flats and fished the incoming tide.

It was a beautiful morning. The wind was up just a little bit, but it was manageable in the yaks. The best part was that the fish were biting. After just a few casts, I landed a nice fat Speckled Trout on topwater.

I hooked and missed a few more trout after this and then proceeded to catch this little guy.

I never knew they made Bluefish that small. Over the course of the trip, I only landed the one trout and little Bluefish. I missed a good ten strikes and lost a couple of fish that I had hooked. What I'm pretty sure was a Redfish came up and annihilated my topwater lure, but because of their downward facing mouth, he managed to -not- hook himself. Apparently I should have switched to subsurface because my dad landed about six trout and lost a few bluefish on soft plastics.

One thing I love about St. Joe is how much area there is to fish. The grass flats extend for at least a half mile off shore and continue down the seven miles of peninsula.

This is why I was livid slightly perturbed when I saw these people run their boat up in the shallows, chop the grass, make a ton of noise, and chunk and anchor our RIGHT next to me. And no, the picture doesn't quite do their "closeness" justice.

It was at least a small victory to see them get excited and yell "Fish on!!", only to pull back a pinfish with their live bait.

By this point, my dad and I were both really tired from the drive and all the paddling. The wind had come up quite a bit more so we decided to call it quits and head back to the truck. The next morning we decided to launch the kayaks at a cove in the southwest corner of the bay. We got there right at dawn and got to see a beautiful sunrise.

The water was quite a bit more shallow than over at the state park. It took close to 10 minutes of solid paddling before I reached 2 feet of water. To my surprise, nothing was biting. I had taken the fly rod with me so it only made sense that after a few casts, the wind picked up to a near-gale. I did, however, notice that there were mullet -everywhere- and I remembered that I brought one snatch hook with me. I paddled back to the truck, switched my gear up a bit, and paddled back to where I'd seen so many schools. The mullet were VERY thick first thing in the morning, but they had begun to spread out by the time I began snatching. I still, however, managed to land one big fat mullet that I failed to take a picture of. I hit another 15 with the snatch hook and hooked and lost 7 of those. If only mullet would take a lure/fly in saltwater. Believe it or not, they fight very hard. The mullet that I landed took out a bunch of line and even dragged me and my kayak a good 50 yards into the wind.

I gave up after a while since the wind was getting stronger and it was exhausting trying to hook a mullet from the kayak. It's quite a bit harder to hook one from the kayak because one can't get the same leverage as they can while wading.

We didn't really know what to do in the afternoon because of the wind. The Gulf was too rough to launch, and if we launched at the state park, we'd never make it back up the beach to the launch because of the wind. We finally decided to just fish the same area as we did earlier in the morning. It was different this time because the tide had now run out. What was once a long stretch of water 2 feet deep, was now nearly a half mile of six-inch deep grassy water. It took forever to paddle across it thanks to dragging the bottom and fighting the wind. The mullet were still thick, but were now in only a few inches of water and every time I cast the treble hook at them, it just stuck in the grass. I managed to find a hole that was a few feet deep and began casting some soft plastics into it. I caught fish, but unfortunately it was just one croaker after another. But hey, it gave me a chance to use those hook outs that I need to write a review on.

I gave up after a few hours and paddled/push-poled myself back to the launch. Upon arriving, I noticed something I'd nearly forgotten about Port St. Joe. Fiddler crabs!

One can't really be careful when walking around them. Whether you run through the group, or step gingerly near them, you'll still hear an unpleasant crunch as one finds the bottom of your shoe. It's a shame I never make it down to Port St. Joe when the sheepshead are really biting.

Summer Update and Other Stuffs

Well, summer is in full swing here in Florida and the fishing will only continue to get better. I haven't made it out to fish much in the past two weeks but that will change come tomorrow. My dad and I leave to Port St. Joe Florida to kayak fish for a few days. We aren't camping since we haven't had much time to get our things ready, but we'll still get plenty of time to fish and hopefully have a blast.

This trip will also give me a chance to try out a few things. I recently received the Baker Magnum "T" Hookouts from a gear review opportunity through the Outdoor Blogger Network.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to try it out during this trip. Also, Snapper season finally opens tomorrow and when I get back, I'll have another chance to put the hookouts to the test. Another thing that I'm itching to try out is a homemade Hawaiian sling/sling bow. Now, I'm a HUGE fan of Dave Canterbury from the Pathfinder School LLC and (the more popular TV show) Dual Survival. On his youtube channel, he's got instructions on how to make a sling bow. Essentially, the sling bow is a sling shot that can shoot an arrow.

The idea looks great and I really wanted to try it out. Unfortunately, I don't have my Crossman slingshots with me (I left them in my apartment at college) and those are the ones that are used in the video. Instead, I have an older slingshot that was bought from Academy Sports and Outdoors. The handle isn't solid plastic like the Crossmans so I can't fit the PVC piece as shown in the video. Instead, it's wrapped in a thin flexible plastic material to cover the metal frame. I schemed for a while before I decided on my own version of the sling bow. Since I'm relatively terrible at crafting things, I decided to keep the design as simple as possible. Therefore, my sling bow only has one additional part.

I bought a 6 inch eye-bolt at Lowes and stuck it in the handle. Yep, that's it. 4 years (going on 5) of college education and that's the best I can come up with. Surprisingly, it works...sorta. I have no intention of shooting an arrow with fletchings from my sling bow. Instead, I bought a bow-fishing arrow and plan to fire the sling bow underwater at fish.

It's HIGHLY doubtful that I'll actually shoot anything, but it's worth a try. I know that Port St. Joe has a bunch of big mullet that come pretty close so I'll be testing out my sling bow this week. Out of the water, it'll stick the bow-fishing arrow about 1/2-3/4 inches into a fence from approximately 10 feet away. Underwater...who knows? I'm hoping to start getting into free diving/spear fishing and I think this might be a good start. I'll be taking along my pole gun as well, and I hope that will at least work.

I'd also like to start video taping such outings with a waterproof camera. I'd really just like something I can use when I kayak fish, spear fish, wade fish, bow hunt, or whatever it is I'm doing at the time. As of right now, I'm thinking about purchasing a Contour HD Helmet Camera and with it, a waterproof case.

I've seen other people using the GoPro HD Hero, but I'd like something I can strap to the side of my visor or snorkel mask and not have a giant camera on an arm sticking off of it.

I also got word that I'll be receiving the 1470 and 1449 Guide Series Waterproof cases from Plano. I'm really excited about trying these out and writing a review on them. I plan to put them through the usual process that my gear endures including, but not limited to: Sun, sweat, saltwater submersion, heat, being dropped, stepped on, lost, found, being dropped, kicked, run over, stuck by lightning, being dropped, and possibly a good scratching.

And with that, I'm off to pack. Hopefully I'll have some good reports rolling in sometime next week!

A Look Back: Ocala National Forest Fishing, 2009

The following is a report from the Ocala National Forest during the summer of 2009:

In mid-July of the summer of 2009, I managed to escape the monotony of my job at a grocery store and drove down to Ocala Florida to do some freshwater kayak fishing with my dad. We decided to fish in Ocala since I had to be in Gainesville for an orientation anyways. Situated just outside of Ocala is the Ocala National Forest. The forest is one of the largest national forests in the state and has many small lakes that are perfect for kayak fishing.

The weather on the way down was iffy at best. The usual summer weather patterns had set in across the state and by the afternoon, huge thunderstorms have boiled up and begin to wander around aimlessly. It rained on and off during the whole trip and I thought that one particular storm at a rest stop looked picture worthy.

We arrived at Silver Springs (the little town between Ocala and the Nat. Forest) later in the day and found an old motel to spend the night in. After dinner, my dad and I sat back and relaxed to watch some TV and recover from the drive. My dad decided to take a shower before he went to bed and it wasn't long before I heard a HUGE crash and a few choice words coming from the bathroom. I opened the door to discover that my dad had successfully destroyed our motel bathroom.

Note to self: Don't put your foot on a sink in order to dry your leg off after getting out of the shower.

Management wasn't particularly pleased, but probably more relieved that we hadn't hurt ourselves and tried to sue. They moved us into a new room and the rest of the night went on uneventful.

The next morning we woke and drove into the forest. I picked out what appeared to be a good looking lake called Redwater lake in the middle of the forest. We missed the turn several times as we weren't looking for a single-laned dirt road. Finally, we arrived and noticed that the water level was down quite a bit. What had once been a boat ramp for small boats was now about 10 feet from the closest wet spot. There was also about a 3 foot drop which would make backing a trailer down the hill impossible. Needless to say, there were no motor boats on the water. In fact, there were no other people. We soon had the kayaks launched and we began fishing.

The first thing I noticed about Redwater lake is the color of the water. Now, I've fished some VERY tannin stained water before, but this lake beats them all. If one could make black coffee...blacker, that might come close to describing this lake. Visibility was about 4 inches...maximum. It was almost creepy how dark the water was as I watched my kayak paddle disappear every time it touched the water. I threw a fly around for about thirty minutes before I gave up on that and resorted to drowning worms (I had yet to be bitten by the fly bug). I soon found a bed of bream and began pulling one after another into the kayak. One of the bluegill I caught was massive and is still, to this day, the biggest bluegill I've ever caught.

Fishing was rather difficult in that I could drop a worm in one spot and catch nothing, then drop the same worm, 6 inches away in a different spot and start to catch fish. I think that the water clarity, or lack there of, contributed to this. We fished Redwater for most of the day until I giant thunderstorm came up and chased us off with its lightning. My dad hooked and lost a nice bass on the fly rod and I caught a few more keeper bluegill.

The next day we fished another lake (who's name escapes me) and didn't have much luck. The water was clearer than Redwater, but certainly not clear. I missed a few bluegill on the fly and finally managed to pull one little bass out before another storm chased us away.

The last day we were down there, my dad and I launched the kayaks at a boat launch that leads into the Ocklawaha river. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the launch actually led into the end waters of Silver Springs just before it meets the river. The water was crystal clear and one could see fish swimming everywhere (although it was mainly all gar). There were "no fishing" signs posted everywhere so we continued paddling through the beautiful water until we met the Ocklawaha. The meeting of Silver Springs and the Ocklawaha was interesting. Crystal clear water meets coffee-tannin stained water and swirls into this bizarre colored mixture before finally turning near-black again. Unfortunately, this was the most interesting part of the day as we caught nothing worth noting aside from about 100 three inch bluegill on a worm.

Overall, the trip to fish the Ocala National Forest was a blast. It was nice to kill two birds with one stone by completing my orientation in Gainesville AND getting to fish the Nat. Forest. From what I've recently read in a magazine, the Ocala National Forest has several long creeks with many sand bars that are perfect for stopping and fishing. It may certainly be worth a float trip in the yaks. I'll just need to make sure I do it before I graduate and move out of Gainesville.