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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