Seaworthy81

I'm working on getting better casting, its not easy to find places where I catch more fish than trees, especially on the longer casts. Good to know about the EP flies, I tied up a handfull and found out that I used too light of hooks and they floated! Need to tie up some new ones that are more sparse with heavier hooks.

Pretty sure its a Pickerel https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/freshwater/chain-pickerel/

I live here in Broward County so I have some ideas. I've never hired a guide but for how quickly you want to strike a guide makes a lot of sense. From what I understand there are 2-3 main area where the boat guides concentrate: Lake Ida, Everglades, Miami The land based guides aren't going to give a whole lot of info up about locations for obvious reasons. Lake Ida would be the closest to West Palm. The lake Ida guides can also maybe get you a Clown Knife and a Snakehead, although that might be a tall order in a half day trip. I believe its primarily a live bait fishery although I'm sure they don't mind and probably like if you wanted to fish lures since they probably only do that with their personal time.

Been traveling a lot for work recently and haven’t had a lot of opportunities to fish for much besides the canals around my home when I am actually home for a day or two. After catching up on chores I had a tiny little window to get out and do a little hyper local fishing before sunset. I recently had wrapped myself an 8wt NFC iconoglass for fishing bigger flies and hopefully getting in some beach fishing for snook and tarpon, but before that I needed to learn how to cast this thing. I have only recently started fly fishing and have only fished with one other fly fisherman and we are both self taught. Suffice to say my casting is a work in progress. So my plan was just to go cast for a couple of hours focusing on technique more than fishing itself. I have also recently started tying my own bad flies, primarily focusing on small streamers, but one of my ultimate goals is to get a bullseye snakehead on the fly, which is pretty rare. I wouldn’t be the first to do it, but it’s definitely a rare feat and even the local guides are shocked when they get the request. For them I’ve been messing around with simple foam mouse patterns, specifically Joe Cermele’s Master Splinter. Within the first couple of minutes at the spot I snagged a tree, almost took my hat off with the fly, missed a small largemouth that ate the fly on a bad cast and generally struggled casting the slower action rod since I’ve only ever used a fast action 5wt before this. I worked my way down the bank occasionally finding a way to get a decent shoot and probably spooked a bunch of fish dumping my line on the water or screaming strings of curse words at the fly gods. Eventually I came to an area where there the middle of the main channel is choked with weeds. This creates a narrow channel, perhaps 3’ wide of deeper clear water right along the bank. I’ve fished this canal a lot, so past knowledge has told me these choked areas along the bank tend to hold fish, hungry fish that press bait into the edges of the bank or the thick impenetrable weeds. At times there are the only productive areas in this canal. Knowing this, I took a deep breath, focusing on technique and loaded up, double hauled and shot a load of what can only be described as light orange spaghetti that slapped the water with a splash that a fat kid in a bellyflop contest would be envious of. At this point I’m glad no one is looking. I try my best to straighten out the line and tried again and this time my line shoots marginally straight and stops abruptly when both me and my line realize I’m standing on it. The mouse fly lands somewhat softly in the middle of the open channel, not as far as I’d like, but beggars can’t be choosers and I’m certainly begging at this point. So with that I gently strip and my mouse cooperates with a pop and small V-wake. Strip two and a hole opens up below my mouse and explodes with a munition-like eruption. I somehow am aware enough to strip set and I’m on! Almost immediately the line comes tight and the fish puts a nice bend in my slower action rod. It’s a good one and I’m glad I’m using the 8wt and not the normal 5wt. A jump shows me I’ve hooked a peacock bass and a nice one at that. With the heavier rod and narrow area the fish can run I’m able to subdue her quickly and she stays still enough for me to get a quick photo and set her free. What a rush, and my new hand made rod and on my new handmade fly! I was just absolutely stoked.

"Destructive to native fish" is still up for debate. Lots of conflicting data there. Seems like mostly a lot of panic and expected caution that has mostly turned out to not be that impactful. Down here in FL, the bass, peacocks and snakehead all seem to be getting along fine eating each other when the chance arises. They are a really fun gamefish, and people down here seem to like eating them, but I'm not particularly fond of eating anything out of our urban canals and golf course ponds.

The 1-2lbers are a hoot on the right tackle too!

FL record is a little over 9lbs, but a 4lb fish is a very nice one. Definitely not the Amazon, but the accessibility is about as easy as it gets and if you hire a guide you will likely get good numbers too.

100% a mayan cichlid

Was not fully part of the plan when I moved, but man it really has worked out well for me so far. If you end up in the Broward / Palm Beach County area send me a note.

In a few months when I’m sweating buckets I’ll do the same for one of your posts ?

There are measurement specs for the northfork builds on the website for spinning, normal casting and acid wrapped casting layouts for the blanks. I’m not sure it’s perfect but it’s probably close enough to lay out and then static test from there to really perfect it.

It’s low temps that got the peacocks in (and less so snakehead and snook where I’m at). The native fish were fine, the water got to the upper 50s for a day or so.

A lot died, still a lot left and the ones that made it are biting well. It’s been good at my normal spots.

After a few months of slow fishing where pretty much the only thing seen or caught was green bass, I started to worry that the winter cold snaps had killed off all my local exotics. Thankfully that changed within the past couple weeks of unseasonably hot weather and the green bass and exotics are back and biting with a vengeance, especially the peacocks. Gear used: medium jerkbait rod and SLX MGL, small jerkbaits (think 1/4oz and 3” or less) and 3” paddle tails. Frog rod and a custom 1/4oz swim jig by barnyard bait co., or a zman freedom with a 4” sudden impact torpedo trailer. Hopefully after a few more days of warmth the snakehead will get back on the topwater bite they are famous for.

CPXTRA from voodoorods.com I’ve refinished probably 10 blanks with it. Apply as fast and as thinly as possible. I used a sponge and long wipes, but a brush can do it too if you know where the guides will fall.

Thank you, I bit the bullet and picked up some of the trokar 3/0s and some centerpins and will see for myself when they get here.

Its very possible that they already are. All I know is they drink a ton of beer and eat pork roll.

Thank you, how does the sizing on them work? Is a 4/0 the same general size and a 4/0 owner? Is the wire similar strength as a beast? You can see what a large particularly aggressive snakehead did to this 4/0 beast hook when I was trying to unhook him. They spin like a crocodile, and if you are pulling on the hook and they spin, it’s toast. Lighter wire hooks get completely pretzeled by even small ones.

Cut and Retie is my current favorite fishing podcast, really engaging and funny, but not really bass based, just general fishing, a bit Jersey centric but it’s pretty new and I’m betting that will expand. I also listen to Cast and Crank, pretty bass heavy but is west coast centered and includes saltwater bass fishing and occasionally so cal offshore fishing. Definitely seems like there is an opportunity for a bunch of really good ones that really hasn’t been tapped.

I live in south Florida where Sun and heat live pretty much all year long. Of the sun shirts I’ve found Huk makes the best most breathable ones, especially their vented shirts where there is a mesh panel from the armpit down the side. They are expensive but worth it imho. I’ve found some knockoffs on Amazon and the material is noticeably heavier, they work Ok but on scortching hot days I always go back to my vented Huk shirts.

Whose website? The weighted beasts in 4/0 have been out of stock at my local shops, TW and the owner site for weeks now.

I can’t find 4/0 weighted beast hooks anywhere and I go through them too fast fishing the way I do. Does anyone know if the trokar magnum 3/0 is a similar size? How is the strength of the hook shaft of the trokar compared to the beast? I’m typically catching a mix of bass, peacock bass and snakeheads; and the snakeheads just tear these hooks up, twisting most hooks into a pretzel.

Shot you a DM.

Same happened to my favorite canals around me. Water got too cold and killed a lot of the peacocks, some made it some didn’t although I’m not really sure what the difference is since they were all in the same canal. Somehow the snakehead survived though. I also haven’t seen a Mayan since the cold snaps either although I didn’t see any dead ones.