First time bass fishing at Sawgrass recreational park in the Everglades

How's it going everyone? This past Saturday me and my two friends went fishing at saw-grass recreation park in the Everglades. It was a very sunny, hot day with few clouds. The water was 1-2 inches low. We rented a Jon boat from the park which wasn't bad but a bit under powered. So after a 45 minute boat ride to our first stop, after one of the park employes suggest we hit, my friend caught a nice little large mouth with a shiner, while me and my other friend were fishing with artificial bait. I was using a white Zoom horny toad with a 3/0 Eagle Claw swim bait hook and had a bowfin bite but spit the frog out as i attempted to set the hook. So after 15 minutes of no bites, we went off to the second recommended spot. my and my friend were using lures but weren't having any success. So after 10 minutes of not getting a bite my friends convinced me to start using shiners.  After i did i caught a few chichlids. I switched back to the frog in attempt to catch my first bass on a frog. immediately doing so i had a gar start teasing my frog but would never bite. Until my friend threw in a shiner and caught him. We ended up making heading to our third spot and for some odd reason something told me to cast in to a bed of lily pads, and as soon as my frog hit the water a bass exploded on it. All this is happening at we are going about 4 mph, what an excitement. We went on towards the end of the canal were my friend caught  a nice bluegill on a shiner. At that time it was already 2 o'clock and the sun was burning like crazy so we decided to split and hit some lakes in broward where had better luck. Overall it was a pretty good experience. Has anyone else had better success out there? If so what di you guys do different. Thanks for reading and tight lines.