N Florida Mike

We call em butter cats.( yellow bullhead)My favorite eating catfish.

There's a guy that occasionally fishes my home lake.I don't think he lives on it.Whenever I see him he's just caught another" huge " bass but he never produces the fish.He starts telling me all of the baits he caught them on.I mean every time.And its like he's never seen me out there before.He has No memory of our last conversation.He is condescending, as if HeS the lake pro or something.I just smile and ask him questions.His answers lead me to believe he's never caught anything over 3 pounds.(He doesn't know I've fished the lake for 42 years now)One day he asked me if I'd seen all the "jellyfish"in the lake.I just smiled and shook my head.

I didn't want to say it but I did!

Red shad or moccasin culprit worms too!

That reminds me of the time a friend and me were fishing and an osprey suddenly dove and snagged a bass that appeared to be 5-7 pounds.The osprey got him out of the water and was flapping with all his might but could not get but a few feet above the surface.The bass was struggling with all his might as well.So it appeared that the osprey was then trying to disengage her claws and finally was able to "release" the bass.We went over to find the bass but it had disappeared and apparently survived.

Not to muddy the water but I had a friend in high school who's dad said he saw a black panther while riding his horse out in the woods in extreme s.e duval county.(this was in the late 70s)There was definitely a few around there then.What we all concluded was these were very dark Panthers because they stayed in the swamps and their color matched their surroundings.While not truly black, they were dark enough to be thought of as black but not genetically black.

Its one of my " inner circle " baits.Its one I always have on hand but I don't always use each time out.I have not caught one big fish on them though, but it seems to be a great numbers bait.I have an area of my home lake that has a lot of old tree branches and brush piles.I do well with this bait esp.in this area along with baby brush hogs.I catch most of them either dead sticking them or hopping it along the bottom.but I have caught fish on them reeling in, usually in the middle of the water column.Watermelon Reds my fav. Color. Went Saturday and caught all of my fish on it.Biggest was 1.9.Like I said its not normally my go to bait but I used it that way and I was pleased with the results. Dicks has had them every time I've gone to pick some up.

When I was 24 I was night fishing a farm pond with a girlfriend and using a spoon with 5/0 hook.I felt a bump and reacted instinctively and jerked .But it was only a few feet out and the spoon came out and hit me in the right eye.I spun around and sat down.I reached up and gently pulled but it was in deep.I cut the line and had to hold the spoon up because it was pulling my eyeball down from the weight of it.We were both kind of in shock.She drove me to one of those acute care type clinics and when the doc saw it he made a face and told me to get to a hospital.Duh!!. Anyway I was in surgery for 5 hours.The impact of the spoon detached the retina, destroyed the lens and damaged the iris.A doctor who was one of the best in the state did the surgery .He apparently didn't think he could save the eye but tried anyway.He agreed later it was a miracle that the eye was saved. I just had a recent eye test, and with correction, the eye is now 20-20!.I'm very thankful. I also got a small hook stuck just like the first post.I just rotated it around and gently pulled it and it slipped out.No sweat- if you've been hooked in the eye nothing else is a big deal!!

I usually do well with dark colored worms around them.That's it.

Sorry, but I don't get it.The Beatles?

Little boy came up to us once when we were catching bream and shiners at a pond .Begged us for some of them .He really wanted the shiners.We told him you can't eat them- too many little bones.He said we don't care we eat fish and grits 8 DAYS A WEEK.

I used to catch mine at a small golf course pond.Id chum them with bread and throw once or twice with a cast net and get all I needed.This worked fine until I caught a 5 pound bass in the net just as the security guard pulled up! Don't use the the farm- raised shiners.Bass don't care for them. And any bass in a water body will readily eat shiners whether or not there's any in there or not

Lol exactly what I thought. By the way, one good summer pattern around here is fishing frog baits where you hear croaking frogs.I really don't think its the basses favorite meal but the ones I catch this way are all fat , healthy fish.

We were fishing the Ocklawaha river once when without any warning two fighter jets flew over us at tree top level.My heart started beating faster just now thinking about it.It was and still is a pretty remote area with little noise .We were totally and completely blown away by the suddenness of it. Another time we were at the folkston Ga entrance into the okefenokee swamp and my son and his friend were fishing at the boat docks and his friend hooked a big mudfish.As he was pulling it up it fell off the hook and landed on a mud bank.He was just about to jump down and get it when a giant 10-12 foot gator shot up on the bank, grabbed the fish and sank back in.

Just try living in N.E Florida.In 40 years a whole way of life is nearly gone.Its like a snowball rolling downhill.it just keeps going further and further and gets bigger and bigger.When I was 17 it was 5 minutes to the woods.Now its a ' hood.It started with one or two people selling out, and the country folks didn't want to see a new house behind their barn or pasture so they sold too and it just keeps rolling in.One of my best friends lived on a farm.If you want to know about this family, just watch a few Dukes of Hazzard reruns.They had app.40 acrres in pasture and woods.2 Fish ponds , cattle, chickens, gun range.Hunted deer etc.Several 4 wheel drives, 3 wheelers,Tractors etc.They were at the end of a long country road.Also in an area with a large family that had at least 20 household's of them.Then came the development.Slowly at first, it started at the other end of the road and worked its way to them.Finally, it was just to suburban for them So they sold out and moved to S Georgia( where change is much slower.)Now old farm has a road going through it and has become a park with soccer fields ( of all things)where our old gun range was.At least they haven't cut the old pine we had our target's on.It still has the scars from the bullets.Now the big family is down to a few household's left.Surrounded by suburbia.At least the road still bears their name.

I can tell you about the fishing but not so much about the stocking or management. If I wanted to figure out what was in there I would : Catch some small bream and use live ones for bait with and without corks.If you have shiners they are better.When the bream or shiners die, use them for cut bait.With a float to suspend them off the bottom and without a float on the bottom. The feeders are a good idea but before you get them bait up ONE area by hand and focus there( dock area?)You can probably get the feed at. Feed or hardware store.Purchase a feeder or throw it out by hand several times a day and it will attract many of the fish so you can catch them easier and find out what all's in there. also use a stinky bait on bottom like dead shrimp or chicken livers.Also earthworms with a small hook.To catch little baitfish use a tiny hook no cork and a tiny breadball.( and 4 pound test line) While you're waiting for a bite.Fish search baits such as flukes or 4 inch senkos to find bass.To get an idea of bass populations, I would get some fat earthworms and fish aroun the pond with a small cork and #4 or 6 bronze hooks.Use the whole worm, hook it once in the band ( cast softly).You will get action ! Sometimes the bream will peck it off but sometimes the bass will get it first . Try the pond boss web site. Check with your state fish/game.They can help with stocking/ management. Mike

Got bit by a garter snake once.Even though I knew what kind it was it still messed me up in the mind a little.Thinking, but what if I'm wrong? Been bit by yellow jackets,yellow flies,deer flies,small black flies,chiggers,wasps, hornets, fleas , ticks,spiders,earwigs and lots of skeeters.Also fire ants and native black ants and 1 dog. Also been bit by a cooter turtle. Also been bit by the fishing bug Life's rough here in FL

Nice catch.I love shellcrackers.I caught around 30 0ne time in about 1/2 hr. In the st johns river.They were all caught under an old broken down dock.with worms.They pick up the worm and swim with it like a bass.Biggest one I ever caught was 11 1/2 inches long and 11 inches around.

Man, that red shad was my favorite bait nearly everywhere I fished back then.I won a tournament fishing with them in the 80s

I was wondering if anyone was tagging fish.I ordered a tagging kit and did it for about 20 fish.When I ran out I was going to order more but the prices had gone up a lot. One of my fish had been re- caught about 300 feet from where I first caught it. Does any one have a good homemade way to do it? Thanks

Great fish!!

Saw 2 tonite as I was casting by my dock.One I must have nearly stepped on barefoot but it was probably a banded water snake.Heard it plop into the water at my feet and saw it swim off.Got to be more careful !!

I use the red shad in stained water,black shad. Or motor oil in clear water,moccasin in tannic water and tequila in dusk or dawn.I use a 1 or 2/0 wide Angle hook and as little weight as poss. Caught 2 of my 10 biggest fish on the 7.5.I think one on black shad and one on red.

Real Purdy fish!!

Me and a friend did a total length tournament since we didn't have scales then.Just total every fish's length for the day.To make it fun, we divided the lake into 4 sections and switched every hour.I started at one end and him at the other.One interesting thing that happened was that right as we passed halfway down the lake he caught a 21.5 inch fish.He had just got out of sight and I caught one that was 21.5 on the other side of the lake!!.I ended up winning by 8 inches.I caught more but his were bigger overall. Loved the suspense of not knowing what he had caught until the end.But you could take abreak in the middle to compare results.