April 25, 2023

[FishnDave]

Florida - Day 7We had about a 1/2 day to fish before heading to the airport. We hit a bunch of spots that just didn't produce at all. Finally caught one more fish to end the trip.This was a GREAT trip! I caught a bunch of fish species I've been wanting to get for awhile. I ended with 25 species for the trip, and 21 of those were new to me on the fly rod! This boosted my Fly Rod Life List to 105 species!

[lee s]

What an opportunity and blessing Dave, What a grand trip. We cherish EVERY trip we get to take to Florida. There seems to always be something new to pester there....fisherman's paradise for sure. ....lee s.

[FishnDave]

What an opportunity and blessing Dave, What a grand trip. We cherish EVERY trip we get to take to Florida. There seems to always be something new to pester there....fisherman's paradise for sure. ....lee s.

Right on! Yes, there are still a lot more species to pursue in "fisherman's paradise". We tried for, but didn't manage to catch, snook and tarpon in the canals. FL experienced a severe cold snap that lasted multiple days earlier this year, and there was a big fish kill throughout south FL. There were a lot fewer invasives/exotics than in recent history, and it also greatly affected the snook and tarpon. The few tarpon we saw were larger than we really wanted to catch...Same with just the one or two snook we saw. All the small ones were nowhere to be found for us. Mayan cichlid numbers were way down as well. We only saw less than 10 Oscars during the whole trip. So...yeah, numbers were way down. They'll bounce back, but the timing of the fish kill certainly affected our trip. I'm not complaining at all, though.