Species hunting adventures in Florida: Part 4.

The following day we headed back to Silver Palm Park to fish in the channel there. It was Sunday, and it was very busy due to there being a slipway there. Lots of boats were being launched and passing by in both directions, and this made fishing further out into the channel difficult.

The boat traffic was non-stop and the park's slipway was in use constantly too. If you plan on visiting this spot, it's advisable to do so during the week, when it's probably a lot quieter!

One of the reasons for visiting the park again was that it produces a very wide variety of species. I was told that one possible catch, the blackear wrasse, was more difficult to locate elsewhere but could reliably be amongst catches at this spot. After catching a few other species, I managed to catch one of them from further out in the channel, taking advantage of short breaks in the boat traffic. Later in the session, I also added a second puffer species to my tally for the trip as well. Lillian did a spot of fishing too and caught a few sergeant major and a yellowtail snapper.

As well as a few checkered puffer, I also caught my first bandtail puffer.

Out in the channel away from the hordes of sergeant major, I caught lots of grunt, including Sailor's grunt,...

...and white grunt. The white grunt’s striking blue facial markings were stunning.

I also caught a few porkfish. They also belong to the grunt family.

At a casual glance, this could be mistaken for just another slippery dick, but it was in fact my first ever blackear wrasse. It has a small dark spot just behind its eye (the ear) and also a black spot at the rear end of its dorsal fin.

The following afternoon, we returned to the Sawgrass Trailhead At Atlantic Boulevard, where I spent a couple of hours fishing. It was an enjoyable session, but I didn't catch anything new. I spent a fair amount of time trying to help some kids catch fish and answering a lot of their questions. They didn't have much luck sadly, and I ended up giving them most of my worms, to try to improve their chances! I did see a couple of peacock bass skulking around, but when they spotted me they swam off in the opposite direction. I tied on a small plug and had a few casts with that to see if I could tempt any others that might be in the vicinity, but sadly my efforts went unrewarded.

From there we headed east to Boca Raton Inlet, a spot that’s well known for producing an amazing array of species. I had arranged to meet up with Arthur, a YouTuber who lives in south Florida, whom I've been talking to about species hunting and travel for a year or so, after he contacted me looking for info on fishing on Lanzarote. He travels all over the world, and was the inspiration for my trip to Singapore last year.

Arthur with a peacock bass.

Check out Arthur's YouTube channel.

Boca Raton Inlet. A species hot spot.

We arrived about an hour before Arthur did, so I quickly got set up and started fishing from some rocks. It was a bite every cast, and I was catching lots of grunt and sergeant major when he arrived. We then moved a little further from up the channel to fish from a concrete seawall. It was rocky straight down the wall, but a lot deeper water was only a few metres out. I tried fishing closer in to begin with, and this produced slippery dick and more damselfish. Sergeant major damselfish and lots of brown damselfish. Brown damselfish can be extremely difficult to identify at times, but I believe I caught two different species.

The easy one first. This is a male sergeant major. Normally these are black and yellow, but they take on this bluish colour while guarding eggs.

Brown damselfish number one. No blue leading edge on the anal fin makes this a dusky damsel. I think.

This one, I believe, is a beaugregory damselfish. Again, if you think it's not, please let me know!

Casting out a bit into the deeper water, I caught a few more grunt and then caught a few Bermuda sea chub, a species I’ve caught before on in the Canary Islands. They were a reasonable size and gave a good account of themselves in the current, trying to get down into the rocks closer in.

I'd caught a solitary Bermuda sea chub on Lanzarote a few years ago.

As we chatted away, Arthur, who had scaled down to a tanago hook and a small piece of splitshot, caught a clown wrasse from a shallow rocky area to my right. I was just about to go and try for one myself when something bigger picked up my bait and charged off. It felt pretty strong and made a couple of surging runs, so I didn’t bully it too much for fear of being broken off. When the fish came into view, I recognised the species immediately and was very excited. It was a species I knew that was caught at Boca Raton Inlet occasionally, and was also one I really hoped I’d catch during the trip. Lillian did a fantastic job with my extending net and after a nervous moment near the rocks the weird looking fish was landed.

This bizarre looking creature is a scrawled filefish. It fought well despite being such an odd shape. No doubt due to its thin profile and very large tail fin.

The markings were stunning, and it also had a wicked set of jagged little teeth that I wasn't expecting. Without a doubt, a second contender for fish of the trip.

Shortly afterwards, we moved to a second spot closer to the opening of the inlet. The current had picked up considerably, and holding the bottom was becoming increasingly tough. All we caught were grunt, and before too long Arthur had to leave, wishing me good luck for the rest of our holiday. It was great to fish with him for a couple of hours, and I really appreciated him taking some time out of his very busy schedule to drive up and meet us. I'd really like to meet up with him again in the future, perhaps in some far-flung part of the world! He's also been told he'd be most welcome to visit me in Edinburgh if he fancied targeting species in Scotland. I fished on for a little while longer, trying to tempt a clown wrasse out of the shallow rocky area, but the current had got so strong that small waves were breaking over it, making it tough to keep my rig still, and after catching a few damselfish and slippery dick we called it a day. This session drew a close to our first week in Florida. The following day we were moving to new accommodation further south, from which I was looking forward to visiting the Florida Keys and also canals of the Tamiami Trail. 

Tight lines, Scott.

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Species hunting adventures in Florida: Part 1.

Since the middle of December last year, I hadn't done any fishing. The weather all winter was pretty terrible, but being honest, after last year's species hunt, which saw me catch two hundred and twenty two species, I think I was a little bit burnt out and just needed a break! Realising that I had to get back into the swing of things, at the end of January, a two week holiday to Florida was booked. Midway through March, Lillian and I flew out there.

Our first time in the United States would predominantly be a fishing holiday, and I did lots of research in the months prior to going. I scoured the internet, spoke to various people in the species hunting community, and soon had lots of spots to fish for a wide variety of species. More than I could visit in two weeks! After arriving late in the evening, picking up our hire car from Miami International Airport and getting our first experience of "hitting the highway", we arrived at our accommodation and unpacked. It was too late to go fishing, so we got some food and went to bed. The following morning, we decided to visit Phil Foster Park in Riviera Beach, where things got off to a great start. Setting up my Rock Rover, I opted to fish from a small platform on the western side of the park. Small pieces of shrimp on small hooks tempted a variety of fish, and the bites came thick and fast. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, and it felt wonderful to be out catching fish again, mostly new species into the bargain.

My first fish of the trip. I think this is a silver porgy.

It was quickly followed by a few more, then a few sergeant major. No identification issues with this colourful damselfish.

I caught a few yellowtail snapper as well,…

…and a solitary juvenile porkfish.

There were a lot of these bright yellow French grunt around,…

…as well as their less colourful cousin, the tomtate grunt.

In amongst the sergeant major, I caught this solitary cocoa damselfish.

I also caught this fish, which looks very similar to the silver porgy. However, based on a few differences, I believe this one is actually a spottail pinfish. I'm happy to be corrected on either of the identifications, so if you think I'm wrong, please get in touch!

After a while, I moved a short distance from the fishing platform to the northwest corner of the park. The water directly out in front of it was a lot deeper and there were rocks close in, providing structure for the fish to congregate around. I caught more fish at this location, but I wasn't adding any new species to my tally, so we began to slowly work our way along the park's north side.

The northwest corner of the park was by far the most productive area, but only produced more of what I'd caught already.

On the north side the water was a lot shallower, with a few rocks dotted around on the bottom closer in, and a relatively clean sandy area further out. This change in habitat produced fewer fish, but they were mainly new species, so it was a good decision to try there. 

Close in amongst the rocks on the bottom, I caught this masquerader hairy blenny when it shot out from underneath a boulder to snatch my bait. It looks very similar to a hairy blenny. The hairy blenny however has a well defined white halo around the spot on its gill plate.

I also caught a few of the naughtily named slippery dick. This one posed nicely. The others were a real pain to handle, hence their name I suppose. Strangely, Lillian didn't want anything to do with handling slippery dick, despite me requesting assistance several times. The dirty jokes soon wore a little thin I think!

Casting further out, I caught a couple of dwarf sand perch,...

...a solitary dusky flounder,...

…and my first two mojarra of the trip. Having sought help identifying them I now suspect they were tidewater mojarra, but they’re a group of fish that can be very difficult to positively identify. Again, if you can help, please let me know!

It was soon time for an afternoon break, so we drove to the nearby Manatee Lagoon to hopefully see one of the large, slow moving, aquatic mammals that live in the waters around Florida. The Lagoon is next to the hot water outlet of a power station, and the manatees are attracted to the area by the artificially hot water there. When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to spot a single manatee near the surface, but before we could get a photo, it swam down out of sight and didn't resurface again.

The Florida manatee. Strange creatures!

Before heading into the Florida Manatee Eco-Discovery Center to learn more about Florida manatee we did see a large shoal of barracuda.

There were quite a few of these fairly large greater barracuda enjoying a hot water spa treatment. There were no fishing signs though, so a return at a later time armed with suitable tackle was out of the question sadly.

On the way back to our hire car, we spotted another big grey beast in the shape of this huge jacked up truck.

The motorists of Florida do love their big vehicles. Great for loading up with fishing tackle and towing boats!

Returning to Phil Foster Park, I began fishing again at the northwest corner. The tide was coming in, and the current was a lot stronger as a result. Not as many fish were biting, and I caught fewer than I had during the morning session. A shoal of planehead filefish eventually turned up, and I caught half a dozen of them in a very short period, one after the other, before they left again. They fight quite well for their size, and it was fun catching so many consecutively.

The planehead filefish is found right across the Atlantic Ocean. This was the first species of the trip that I'd caught before, on some of the Spanish and Portuguese islands of the Eastern Atlantic.

I caught a few more fish, but they were species I'd already encountered earlier in the day, so we decided to move again. This time we headed around to the eastern side of the park. It was very shallow there though, and there were a few no fishing signs up around the pontoons and slipway, so we headed to the bridge just to the east of the park. The current was very strong there, but I caught lots of grunt from some slack water where the bridge opened up. The fish were very aggressive, with bites coming before my rig even got to the bottom. I caught mainly tomtate grunt and French grunt. But in amongst those, I eventually caught a third species of grunt.

My first Sailor's grunt of the trip. These ended up being much less common than the other grunt species.

By this point we were both feeling a little hot, so we opted to seek the refuge of some shade. Initially we walked around to the fishing pier in the southwest corner of the park. I thought that it might be in the shadow of the Jerry Thomas Memorial Bridge, but it wasn't so we ended up leaving it and going directly underneath the bridge instead, where it was nice and cool. There I focused my efforts around the bases of the bridge's legs, casting my rig in as close to the structure as I could. This initially produced a few slippery dick and some small grunt. After a while, something larger picked up my bait and tore off into the current. It was only on for about thirty seconds before the hook pulled. Shortly afterwards, another bigger fish took my bait and charged off, biting through my hooklength almost immediately. Realising that there were larger targets in the vicinity I decided to tie on a stronger leader, changing from 6lb to 12lb, and I also swapped out my pin hook for a much stronger chinu pattern. This paid dividends when something else picked up my shrimp chunk and made a run for it. At one point I thought the fish was going to make it around the concrete legs of the bridge, but at the last moment I managed to turn its head, and it headed down the current away from the bridge. After a few more minutes of slow but steady pressure, an amazing looking fish came to the surface and was netted by Lillian, who did a fantastic job of landing the rather bizarre looking fish for me.

Wow! What an awesome and unexpected capture! My first angelfish. I'd later identify this as a French angelfish.

Well worthy of a trophy shot! I knew straight away it could potentially end up being the coolest fish of the trip.

By this point we were both feeling a bit tired and hungry, and we both agreed that this was a great fish to end the session on. The first day had been pretty awesome, and I'd caught a lot of interesting fish. The following day we were going to visit some freshwater venues. On previous trips abroad, I've mainly focused on fishing for saltwater targets. On this trip, I was keen to fish freshwater a lot more.

Tight lines, Scott.

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