The Report from Spotted Tail 12/4/11
Upcoming Events- Shad and Crappie Fishing Seminar, Mosquito Creek Outdoors, Thursday December 8 @ 6:30pm.
Come on out and see us, and learn how to catch the elusive shad!
Something incredible happened this week! I read some truly good news! One of my favorite columns to read on the web isn't about fishing, it's about football. Tuesday Morning Quarterback comes out every Tuesday during football season on ESPN.com, p.2. One of the many things I like about this column is that it's esoteric. Yes, it's about football, but it wanders about the web universe to whatever the author (Gregg Easterbrook) finds interesting. And this week he had not one but TWO truly good news items.
Here is the first, a direct quote:
"Bad News Makes Page 1; Good News Is Ignored: Many major news organizations did not even report that last month the final B53 city-buster nuclear bomb was disassembled. A vestige of the darkest days of the Cold War, the B53 was a nine-megaton death device, the most powerful U.S. weapon ever built. Its blast yield was about 750 times greater than that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Horrible as the Hiroshima bomb was, many citizens of Hiroshima survived; the B53 was designed to incinerate an entire large city such as Moscow, leaving no one alive. Once the United States had more than 300 of these monstrosities; now all are gone. The equivalent Russian very large nuclear bombs have been disassembled, too.
Someday when historians look back on our era, they may not pay a huge amount of attention to Lady Gaga or Ryan Seacrest but will be amazed that we paid so little attention to the end of the doomsday threat to civilization."
To read the rest of this item, or item number 2, see his column for this week here.
I got this email from Reid Martin:
"Help me stop a massive dredging project on Florida's Nature Coast, that would disturb, forever, the largest intact coastal ecosystem in the State of Florida. The seagrasses in question are a nursery for our most important fisheries, a home for endangered species and support a distinctive way of life. I just took action to stop it, and you can too.
"Follow the links below to take action and spread the word!
"To take action on this issue, click on the link below:
http://grn.convio.net/site/Advocacy?s_oo=UnHg9HNOP9AWNcz_RP4hHQ&id=317 "
A gentleman called me from North Carolina, interested in a trip to the no motor zone of the Banana River Lagoon. I told him last time I was there the water was high and really dirty, with no fish, but I would go again and check its progress. On Tuesday Dr. Mike Sweeney and I went to check. It's not as high, but still really dirty. And like last time, the only fish I saw were mullet. It will be weeks before I bother to check again. It was pretty nasty.
Wednesday Ken Moser, a fly fisherman from Maryland, and his friend Matt joined me for a day on the Mosquito Lagoon. Speaking of dirty water…
The temperature was in the low fifties when I launched the boat, and the ride to the first no-fish-there spot was damn cold. And there were no fish there. I looked from the poll/troll area all the way past JB's Fish Camp. We saw perhaps a dozen redfish and no trout. Ken had a good shot at one fish the entire day, a fish that took the fly (Yank's Redfish Assassin). Unfortunately the hook did not stick.
Matt got a lovely, multi-spot slot red on a Johnson Minnow, and another slot red on that ate a mullet chunk while we took our lunch.
I was feeling a little snake bit so I talked to two other guides on the way home. They did worse than I did. Misery does love company when it comes to fishing. The water dropped some but it's still ridiculously dirty in a lot of places.
On the bright side although chilly and a little breezy it was a beautiful, cloud free day.
On Thursday son Alex and his friend John Napolitano joined me for a little redfish action on the Indian River Lagoon. We didn't hurry to start, launching the boat at almost 10 AM. It was cold and blowing about 15 out of the north, with broken clouds. I had gotten a hot tip at the boat ramp from someone I had never met and wanted to check it out (!). I can't believe it either, must've been desperate.
Anyway, the spot was in the wind and hard to fish. I was surprised when I spotted a redfish, but there ya go. We staked out the boat and chunked with mullet for a while, getting one red in the slot and another out of it. Then some rain clouds came, so we beat feet.
At the boat ramp I was stopped by an FWC officer, a beautiful young woman, by far the best looking law enforcement officer I have ever seen. I'm looking forward to getting stopped again! Almost makes me want to break the law so I have another encounter.
Friday Ed Redman and Roger Cooke, fly fishers from North Carolina and the gentlemen who wanted the NMZ trip, joined me for some Mosquito Lagoon fly fishing action. Yes, it was windy and cool, but really. We had about five decent opportunities all day. The fish were very scarce. Roger got one on a brown fly he tied, the only fish of the day. It was almost sunset when I trailered the boat, too.
On Saturday Bruce Reuben, a fly fisher from Tallahassee, joined me for some more of that hot Mosquito Lagoon fly fishing action. On the bright side there were more fish around than the previous day. Bruce had a half dozen decent shots, got three bites, and put on redfish in the boat, fooled by a slider. We saw a few trout, which was good. There still aren't many fish around. We looked in several places where there was nothing, and poled long stretches of shoreline and saw only one or two fish.
The water level has fallen almost to good kayak fishing levels, and it slowly appears to be clearing in some areas, especially around Oak Hill.
Life is great and I love my work!
Life is short- go fishing!
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com/
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2011. All rights are reserved.
