Species hunting adventures in Florida: Part 6.

After spending a couple of days fishing for freshwater targets, I was keen to get to the coast to catch a few fish from saltwater, so we headed to South Pointe Park Pier. This relatively small pier is located at the southern end of Miami Beach and when I was doing my pre trip research several people recommended paying it a visit as it’s a good multi species venue.

Miami Beach from the South Pointe Park Pier.

We hit some horrendous traffic on the drive into Miami but got there eventually. It was a nice day, if a little windy, and after a short walk through the park we soon arrived at the pier. Straight away, I spotted a large shoal of ballyhoo siting in an area of slack water near the beginning of the pier. A chunk of shrimp was lowered down, and I watched one of them swim up to it and eat it greedily. Once the bait disappeared into the fish’s “hatch”, I set the hook, quickly winched the halfbeak up, took a quick photo and dropped it back down to join his mates.

A member of the halfbeak family, the ballyhoo is a popular live bait used to target larger predatory fish. 

Heading further along the pier, we picked a shaded spot under one of the small covered areas. I fished down between the pier and the rocky breakwater at the end of Miami Beach. This produced a few different species, including my first parrotfish of the trip.

This is a redtail parrotfish in its initial phase. The terminal phase is much more colourful.

It proved very difficult to get through the hordes of sergeant major, slippery dick and various grunt species that were fighting over my shrimp chunks. After a while, I tried fishing on the other side of the pier, casting out into open water, this produced a few yellowtail snapper and some mojarra.

Mojarra are difficult to identify if you don't know what to look for. I'm still not 100% on this species. I think this might be a slender mojarra.

Later in the afternoon, we took a stroll along the boardwalk behind Miami Beach and then cut inland onto Ocean Drive. We paid a brief visit to the apartment block where the infamous chainsaw scene in the film "Scarface" was filmed.

There were lots of cool buildings along Ocean Drive. 

On the way back to our hotel later in the day, we stopped off briefly at a small ditch out near the Miami-Homestead Speedway racetrack. It was down a dirt track off the main road and was infested with insects, so I was glad it only took me five minutes to catch a couple of the target species.

 This overgrown ditch certainly wasn't the most picturesque fishing spot!

It produced another new species, so I was happy enough. The black acara is, you’ve guessed it, a non-native species.

The following day we drove down to the Florida Keys. I was very excited about fishing there, as the number of species an angler can encounter while fishing down there is quite incredible. Plus, it’s such a cool place, endless islands connected by bridges, and so many places to fish. Leaving Homestead fairly early, the traffic was pretty bad until we reached Key Largo, but after that it was fine. After a two and a half hour drive we arrived at the first spot, a place I was told there was an above average chance of catching a scrawled cowfish, a strange looking fish that I was really keen to catch. Walking down from the car, we were greeted by a large sign.

Just a tiny fraction of the fish that can be caught.

Unfortunately, and much to my surprise, the fishing was very tough and despite trying a few spots in the area, all I caught was a few slippery dick. There were a few other people fishing too, and I didn't see them catching anything either. Not a great start.

The old Flagler Railway Bridge. At least what is left of it.

Apologies for a second dick pic! This will be the last one.

After a while, we headed back to the car and drove to a second spot near Vaca Cut Bridge. It was very busy with other anglers though, and there was lots of litter strewn around too, which is never nice to see, so we didn’t stay for long. On the way back to the car, a local saw my fishing rod and recommended a spot called Oceanfront Park, assuring us there were lots of fish to catch there. Despite already having lots of places marked in Google Maps, we decided to give it a go. Sadly, there didn’t seem to be many fish biting. I did catch a few pinfish, but that was all I caught.

By this point, I was feeling a little bit frustrated.

My first ever pinfish. At least I had added another new species to my tally.

After a while, we headed to the famous Channel #5 Fishing Pier. The sun was beating down, so to get in the shade for a while, we headed down underneath the road bridge that the fishing pier runs parallel to. Fishing there, things were pretty frantic, and I quickly caught a few grunt, a load of slippery dick and my third puffer species of the trip. I then caught a couple of scrawled cowfish which cheered me up considerably. A I already mentioned, I really wanted to catch one of those.

This Southern puffer was my third puffer species of the trip. 

The bizarre looking scrawled cowfish is a member of the boxfish family. They’re very weird looking things, with a rigid body and horns pointing off in various directions. Only their mouth, fins and tail can move. Despite this, they can swim very quickly.

After a while the tidal flow changed, and it went a bit quiet under the road bridge, so we moved up onto the fishing pier. It was very busy with lots of people fishing, and we tried a few different spots, but it soon became apparent that the predominant fish species below the pier were grunt. Dropping my rig down, my shrimp was being hammered instantly.

White grunt were the most numerous.

There were a few French grunt down there too.

The inside of most grunt species’ mouth is bright red. Not sure what purpose that serves!

After walking along the pier, fishing at a few different places and catching nothing but grunt, I decided to call it a day. It had been a slightly disappointing day in terms of the number of species caught if I'm honest. Heading back towards Florida, we stopped off at Robbie’s of Islamorada, to hand feed the tarpon that hang out in the docks there. We had to be careful not to give the gathered pelicans an opportunity to steal our sardines.

Weird looking greedy birds!

The following day we returned to the pond where I caught my first zebra tilapia, so I could have a second try at catching a Salvini cichlid. This time I tried fishing near some tree roots, as I’d read that’s where they like to hang out. Sure enough, after catching a few other fish and getting snagged on the roots a couple of times, I caught one.

Yet another aquarium trade release, the Salvini cichlid is quite a colourful little chap.

Just as we were leaving the park, I spotted what was probably the largest iguana of the trip. These lizards are everywhere in Florida, but are usually pretty shy, running away into the nearest grasses or up a tree when you get too close to them, but this one seemed a little less intimidated by our presence, and we managed to get a good photo of it.

Invasive species aren’t restricted to the waterways of Florida.

Later that day we visited a pond in Tropical Park. The target there was a tiny fish called a golden topminnow. There were lots of Eastern mosquito fish around, and they were super aggressive, attacking the tiny piece of worm I had baited my tanago hook with. This meant I caught dozens of them properly, not them just biting and holding on to the end of my worm and being lifted out! Eventually, I caught a few golden topminnow, popping them in my little photo tank for a closer look.

The golden topminnow is quite an attractive micro species. I believe this is a male and a female. The male is the one with the red spots.

For the third fishing session that day, we headed back to the canal with the Midas cichlid in it. This time armed with a loaf of bread. Fishing flake on a running ledger, I was hoping a Midas cichlid deeper out in the canal out of sight might be confident enough to pick it up, or perhaps a grass carp would take the bait. It was another tough session though, watching my brightly coloured target swimming slowly around closer in up in the water column, whilst nothing touched my submerged bait on the bottom. In the end, I switched to freelining a worm and caught a solitary Mayan cichlid.

The colours on this Mayan cichlid were stunning, particularly the hues of bright blue on its fins.

The part of the holiday had arrived where I was starting to think about the fact that the end of the holiday was fast approaching! With only a few days left to fish, I decided I’d focus my remaining efforts on saltwater species. I felt I had barely scratched the surface with them, and hopefully if we visited some new venues, I could still add a few more species to my tally.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click her for the final part.