A few weeks ago my friend Nick came down from Michigan to give a presentation at the American Fisheries Society’s latest annual meeting in Tampa. Nick earned his bachelors at the University of Florida and is currently finishing his masters degree at Michigan State. Nick studies fisheries management and is currently conducting field research. Following his graduate degree, Nick plans to go back to UF for his doctorate. He also owns a canoe.
Nick and I played travel and high school hockey together and have been friends for a long time. We’ve fished from Cedar Key to Islamorada together and have had many adventures in his canoe (shown below).
Finally Fishing
We’ve taken that canoe many places, I even once sank it to the bottom of a canal in Lake Ida when we were searching for clown knife fish and peacock bass! It was a super fun time retrieving all of our belongings, trolling motor, fly rods, and canoe from the bottom! Thankfully, the fishing we have just completed after the AFS was more productive and far less disastrous than our clown knife adventure.
We decided to go fish dock lights which is certainly one of my all time favorite things to do. We watched that weeks episode of Game of Thrones and then left to go check some residential canals. Subsequently, this put us on the water close to midnight, the long night was upon us. Winter had not come thankfully, just tons of snook (and unfortunately picky tarpon)!
The next night we got on the water at a much more reasonable hour than the previous night, the trip yielded snook, reds and even a surprise new species on fly (which was less than desirable). We even fished through the rain that night, consequently, we put in the time and came away with a few solid fish.
In Conclusion
It’s always a great time whenever Nick comes down and we get in the noe, especially when I don’t sink it! His canoe is certainly a fish catching machine! Despite loosing some flies and fish, we put a lot of feathers in faces. In other words, it was awesome!
If you enjoyed this post, then check out some of my other posts like, “The Scum Pond Chronicles”.
Until next time, Tight Lines!
