Sunday, March 30, 2014

While we live........

"Dum vivimus, vivamus! -- 'While we live, let us live!' To live, we must follow our dreams, and let no man dissuade us, even if those dreams put us potentially in harms way. Living life in bubble wrap is merely existing, and I choose to experience my life to its fullest.


That's part of why I fish.  Aside from the tasty goodness that I catch, I find fishing to be meditative, and it centers me.  Since my strokes in September, I haven't been able to fish nearly as much as I'd like to, and haven't been able to hit my secret holes for the big cats.  This is changing, though.  

My next big fishing agenda, though, is to do a charter.  I'd like to go after some of the big Pelagic fish, and since Martin County and the Treasure Coast is the Sailfish and Marlin capitol of Florida, who knows?  Maybe I'll get a monster.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Catfishing on the St Lucie Canal

Prized among catfish, the St Lucie Canal offers some really good channel cat action.  My average fish is 18-24 inches, and provide some quite tasty meals.  They are also pretty good fighters and hit like a freight train on various baits from chicken liver, to minnows and even on leftover squid from salt water fishing.
l Cats from the St Lucie Canal
The besty times for catfishing are right as the sun is coming up, or around sunset.  They also hit at night, but you have to compete with the alligators in the canal, so I don't really bother with night fishing, since my lights attract the gators.  I'm safe enough, where I fish in my secret catfish hole, because of a vertical 4 foot concrete wall the gators can't climb, but they keep eati g the fish before I can get them landed. 

Also, in the canal, is a veritable panoply of panfish, from big sunfish to bluegills that make a midwestern boy like myself, as happy as a clam with their sizes.
Bluegill and Redear Sunfish from the St Lucie Canal and Port Mayaca Retention basin
From my experiences up north and down here in Florida as well, nothing fights like a Bluegill.  I'd love to see what a 10 or 15 pound bbluegill would be like, I'm not sure you could land it on light tackle, actually.