N Florida Mike

Strangely enough I almost never catch anything with any purple flake bait, but red, green and blue flake work well for me. purple Shad is a great color, but I use more watermelon colors ( and junebug of course) than anything else… Great trip by the way.

You had enough fishing wisdom to ever hook it in the first place. That in itself is a victory…

I went fishing for an hour or so today. I decided to paddle the jon boat some to hopefully loosen up the injury. It hurt at first , but eventually tapered off. I set the hook on a solid bass and fought him to the boat with no pain. Im sitting at home now with no pain. Hopefully, I wont pay for it tomorrow!

Got this warmouth on a senko. He was as healthy as they get.There’s not many of them in my home lake.

Got out for a little while before a thunderstorm came up… Got one nice fish on a senko…

You can get what looks like crocs at wal mart for less than 10 bucks…Ive had mine for over 5 years now… Wal mart?

Ive never been sick once while fishing. The first time I went deep sea fishing My wife , middle son, and daughter all got badly seasick. I went fishing with a friend once that swallowed his wad of red man. You can imagine the result of that. I did have the Quickstep once when we were camping in the Ocala forest. We had ran out of water on the second day, and it was a long way to a store, so we drank the water that had been ice in the cooler…before long we were all behind palmettos lol…

Dont forget your in rural Georgia… I have a Dark green BPS hat from the eighties that’s a little too small but I’ll wear it occasionally to relive the old times…

I caught my PB at a spot right up against the bank that had a little hole that was deeper than normal. Cattails came out on both sides of it. Within a few months I cast there again and hooked another fish app. the same size but lost it when it jumped. Fast forward 35 years and my son caught one that was a few oz shy of my Pb about 30 feet down the bank from there… He caught another fish that was the same lenght of my PB but was a skinnier fish than mine just a few feet to the right of the other big fish he caught…One of those 2 fish is his PB .

The most unusual thing I ever saw at a ramp was the time several drunk tourist looking guys were trying to launch a big speedboat of some kind at a little , fairly backwoods ramp. They had undone the straps and the guy backing the boat had a pretty good head of steam up and was doing a pretty good job backing up to the point when he hit the brakes for some reason. The boat slid right off the trailer right about where the ramp dipped at an angle to the water… CRUNCH !!!!!! The boat hit the ramp and we helped them get it to the water… and off they went!

My middle son fishes more than anyone I know. He loves fishing so much that he worked on a commercial fishing boat and said he couldn’t believe he got paid to do what he loved. He was gone for 6 days at a time and would fish 12-14 hours straight, and this was mostly with an electric reel winching fish up from 150 feet + depths. He quit because he got in a fight with a drug addict first mate that stabbed him in the arm and leg with a screwdriver. Joe hurt him pretty bad in the ensuing fight . He quit to avoid further trouble… He is very good at any kind of fishing except surf fishing, and he’s fair at that! He’s great at bass fishing but rarely even fishes for bass. He will fish anytime day or night regardless of weather . He just moved to michigan to work ( his trade is plumbing ) He sent me a picture maybe 2 days later, and he’d already caught a bass out of lake michigan…? This one wasnt the one he caught in Michigan…

It would be ok esp central florida. There’d be fish on beds then probably.

I was doing my security job the other night , and this guy jumped on my hat when I was checking a door…

Yes…

Summer and after winter cold fronts are the hardest seasons in Florida. There are bass in the majority of ponds. Residential ponds are often good. Just stay away from posted ones and people’s yards. Gators are very common, but Im personally more concerned with stepping on a moccasin than gators.

Not all the way. It’s better though. I only fished for around 30 minutes. Im probably going to try again tomorrow and see how it goes.

First decent fish in a month.

Summer has a lot of sharks right on the beach. You can catch them surf fishing with cut bait, or a whole fish. like a croaker or whiting. Sorry, but I dont know anyone that guides for sharks down there.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Sam, I injured it crawling under a house for work 2-3 years ago. The constant motion under there is like a soldier wiggling under barb wire. I dont remember it happening , but the next day I felt like someone was stabbing me in the upper right chest . Then I went to the workers comp doc. All he did was take an x ray and said he didnt see anything. Then gave me pain pills, muscle relaxers and heat creme. I took them off and on and after a month it finally seemed to be healed. This time Im not positive what set it off, but Im sure it wasnt at work. I had a pipe leak under my house so it may have happened when I crawled under there. Anyway, it feels like it gets slightly better every day….and Ive lost no range of motion at all. The worse pain is when I bend over to pick something up, or lean back or turn my head sharply. Sometimes it starts hurting if Im sitting with no support for my arm. Guess Ill take the docs advise on the old Hee Haw show- and “dont do that “!?

They work great here, esp. in shallower areas with submerged weeds. I throw it out and let it sit until the ripple is gone. They often clobber it before you even start the retreive. Then short jerks, then short retreives and stops. I cant remember catching one just reeling in with no stops. Came in 2nd in a tournament once ( just missed first ) largely due to the devils horse success that day…

I got hurt at work crawling under a house 2 1/2 years ago. It took about a month to get better that time. I posted about it on BR then. Now Ive done it again. Its in my right upper chest , down deep. The pain starts there and goes on down the underside of my arm to my forearm. Its a pulled muscle, tear , or pinched nerve. I havent fished but a little for 3 weeks. Casting doesn’t bother me , but setting the hook is pretty bad. I know you’ll say go to the doctor, but it’s just too expensive. It seems to be slowly getting better. Hope Im better by the 4th, since Im planning a early morning trip. Ive been trying to gently stretch it, but Im not sure if it’s helping…its probably all the years of baseball and softball. Ive probably thrown 1/2 millon balls in my life…well maybe at least 100,000 , and more casts while fishing than that…

If it’s tannic stained from cypress trees, red shad , or black are good , in addition to june bug. Culprit worms are good in those conditions…

Dang. I thought the Gators were your thorn in the side ?

Its a yellow bullhead. We've called em butter cats all my life in Florida . Delicious and extremely plentiful in wild Florida lakes.

It’s not easy to talk about , because it was by far the worst accident Ive had, and its kind of embarrassing. I was Fishing at night at a farm pond with a girlfriend. She had given me some new lures that I hadnt fished with much. I was only used to fishing T rigs . I tied on a spoon with a 5/0 hook and threw it a few times. As I was reeling in on the fateful cast, I felt a bump , and just reflexively set the hook, like I would for a T rig. Apparently it had bumped bottom close to the bank, because it was way closer than I thought. The spoon hit my eye almost even with it. I felt the impact and sat down, reaching up to see where it was. When I felt where it was ( no pain yet ) , I gently tried to pull it out , but could actually feel my eyeball move. The girlfriend drove me to the hospital. 5 hour surgery. The eye lens was destroyed and I had a detached retina. I took the bandage off the third day and could just see light and motion, but couldn’t focus. With the help of a strong ( expensive ) contact , I can see 20/30 with it. I was told there was another guy there that night that DID lose his eye to a piece of metal. I was also told my doc was one of just a few in Florida that could have done the surgery, and he just happened to be in Jacksonville that night, which wasnt his normal area. I thank God I didnt have to go through life with a glass eye....