Florida Bass Fishing Vacation Part 4

We spent a few more days on Okeechobee and finished the trip clobbering the peacock bass and other fish in the Tamiami Canal.

For peacock bass I used a white 2 inch rubber worm (1/2 of a 4 inch worm) just slightly longer than my hook which I rigged exposed, and Andy used a little boot-tail swimbait on a jighead. We caught more peacocks than we could count a lot of sunfish and oscars plus a few other species.

The trick with peacocks is to spot them. If you don’t see them try jigging a small jig worm or other lure real erratically near shore and they will show themselves. Once you locate them continue to fish your lure near them and they will try to kill it, but they are really fast at biting and spitting what the are trying to kill so even with a small lure it can take several hits before they get hooked, but that’s part of the fun.

Peacock Bass

Oscar, these things fight real hard and I’ve heard they are good eating.

Some type of sunfish

Mayan Cichlid

Green Sunfish

Bowfin

Florida Bass Fishing Vacation Part 3

Road Trip to the Everglades

We took a break from the boat and drove to the Everglades and fished for exotics and bass. Late in the afternoon we hit a stretch of the Tamiami Canal with good bank access and loaded with Peacock Bass, when we finally rolled into our hotel around midnight we realized our “rest day” was more tiring than our usual dawn to dusk days in the boat.

Florida Vacation Part 2

Highlights from 3 of the best days of bass fishing I’ve ever had

The first of these 3 days, stick worms, curly tail worms, swimjigs, and top water was the ticket. The next 2 days, flipping a heavy weight in the cattail jungle accounted for most of our bites, but the swimjigs and worms still got some good bites.

The weekend brought a 200-boat tournament to Roland Martin’s Marina, and while the fishing was still good, we got tired of fishing around those guys; so after putting together about a 19-pound 5-fish limit by noon, which would have put us in about 15th place, we anchored up and watched bobbers, some channel cats, bluegills and cichlids went for our worms.

After the tournament guys went in, we started to fish for bass again, but a storm came up so we went in before we got soaked.

We ended the day fishing at a canal, and while I was petting a friendly cat that decided to join us as I was taking pictures, Andy caught the biggest bass of the trip.

Florida Bass Fishing Vacation at Lake Okeechobee, Part 1

Setting Trail Cameras and Dodging Thunder Storms

I set this camera in the woods off of Uncle Joe’s Cut. It received a lot of hits from raccoons, plus Opossums, and an armadillo

This camera didn’t capture much except this heron.

The iguana was the most interesting thing this camera took a picture of.

A Vulture and a crow were the most frequent visitors here, but also a lot of hits from raccoons, rabbits, and Opossums.

This was my best camera during our stay, along with the alligator I caught some wild pigs, raccoons, Opossums and a variety of birds.

I will be posting the highlights from those cameras later. I set one more camera on the bank of the Rim Canal that I set for videos and captured some swamp people collecting bait. Though they didn’t seem to appreciate being filmed they were decent enough not to steal my camera.
The next day the weather was forecast to be real stormy so instead of taking out the rental boat we spent the day trying different spots from shore. We had pretty good luck and found a great spot thanks to a tip from a local that produced a lot of nice fish throughout our stay including Andy’s (my brother) largest of the trip. a 7.5 pounder.

Coast Guard Beach Trail

This trail starts at Point Higgins School and leads to a beach at the junction of Tongass Narrows, Behm Canal and Clarence Strait.
The first place to access the beach takes you to an area of rocky shoreline. and offers a good view of the Guard Island Lighthouse and Clarence Strait; the entrance to Tongass Narrows is on the left, and Behm Canal is to the right.
The trail continues for about 1/4 mile to a nice sandy beach (by Ketchikan standards)