Sunshine state angling adventure

The water’s surface exploded again, and Jason hollered, “That’s a snakehead, and he’s a big one!” The fish immediately dove into the weed patch, but it was no match for the heavy braided line spooled on my reel, and I pulled the long fish back out of the weeds. It leaped a couple feet clear of the water, and fought doggedly, but after some tense minutes of give and take, I was able to direct it into Jason’s net. The plastic frog had been destroyed by the bite / fight, and Jason put a terrible bend in the hook pulling it out of the fish’s jaw, but then it was picture time. The snakehead had some teeth we wanted to avoid, so Jason used a Boga grip to hold its’ mouth. I hefted the fish by grabbing the boga grip in one hand and lifting under its belly with my other hand. My wife, Frede, and Jason both snapped some quick pictures, and then I released the snakehead back into the small canal.

Frede and I fished four days with Jason, and his wife Angela joined us on two of those days. In addition, on the day we arrived, my wife and I caught Mayan cyclades, African cyclades, and bluegill off of the dock where Jason stores his boat. We caught those fish on small pieces of bread rolled into a ball and squeezed onto a #2 hook. I had mailed down 4 of my custom-built spinning rods, and two of those rods became proven fish-catchers in just a few minutes fishing from Jason’s dock on Friday afternoon. Those dock fish, and in particular some of the larger Mayan Cyclades gave us a good workout on an ultralight rod.

Saturday morning, found us boating down a canal to the lake, and then making several additional turns through the canal system. At our first stop Jason and Angela caught our bait by using the guideboat’s fish finder and a cast net. Angela handled the boat, while Jason cast and brought in the net. It took several attempts, but on the final attempt there were bunches of two to three inch shad (forage fish) in the net. Jason put them in the boat’s live well, and we boated up another canal to fish. Potions of the canal were lined with houses, some of which had boat docks along the canal banks. We pulled up to one of Jason’s favorite boat docks, hooked 3 shad on 3 small hooks, and then attempted to cast them so they would skip under the boat dock. Angela did not even attempt to cast her shad under the dock, but simply tossed it along the canal’s edge and off to the side of the dock.

We were fishing the shad without weight, and the trick was to give the shad enough slack so it could swim and dive into the canals depths. Jason’s advice was to lift the line tight every five seconds, or so, to feel for a bite, or see where the shad had swum. The shad swimming at the end of the line telegraphed small jerk — jerk transmitions down the line, but the bites we were looking for would feel like a fish had engulfed the shad and started swimming off. At that point we were instructed to set the hook — but not too hard, as we were only using small # 2 hooks. Does it sound like this technique may take time to get a feel for? Suffice it to say that Angela schooled Frede and I, by catching the first few fish. Frede was next, and I did not even hook a fish until Angela gave me her spot in the boat to cast where she had been catching fish.

Part of the fun was not knowing what species of fish would be caught next. During this day we caught largemouth bass, brilliant-colored peacock bass, Mayan cyclades, clown knifefish, bluegill, and hybrid bass known in Florida as sunshine bass. All of the fish were caught on the same little shad, small hooks, and spinning reels mounted on lightweight custom-built rods. Jason said we caught about 40 fish on our trip — and while I had not kept a count, I knew each of us had caught a good number of fish. Did I mention temperatures during the entire trip were in the 70s and 80s, with pleasant sunshine until we encountered some brief showers on the boat ride back?

The second day Jason had scheduled me to join him in a small local bass fishing tournament. It was a best fish tournament, with a guess weight for the largest fish. There was a prize for the angler catching the largest bass (largemouth, peacock, or sunshine), a prize for the angler catching the second largest bass, and a prize for the angler guessing the correct weight range of the winning fish. Each angler was allowed to guess one weight range, with the earliest arriving angler allowed to guess from all of the weight ranges, and each following angler allowed to select from remaining weight ranges that had not already been selected. All the fishing was done with artificial lures, and an angler’s best bass was kept in a live well to be weighed at the end of the morning tournament.

Jason had a scale in our boat so we could weigh large bass. If either angler caught a bass larger than the one he already had in the live well, then the smaller fish would be released and the larger one put into the live well. Jason started out casting a Texas-rigged plastic worm, and had me casting a jerk bait plug. As the boat owner, Jason operated the electric trolling motor and fished from the front of the boat, as we casted our way along the canal and lake shorelines. It took a lot more casting to catch fish on artificial lures. While we had caught a good mix of species with shad the previous day, on artificial lures during the tournament, we caught almost exclusively largemouth bass. We also boated a few peacock bass. Jason caught the first few fish, and then after I caught one, he caught the next several. He switched me to a Texas-rigged plastic worm and I started catching fish a bit better. We both caught our best bass early during the trip on plastic worms, and then spent the rest of the morning attempting to catch larger fish.

Jason’s best bass was larger than mine, and I believe he said it weighed in as the 5th largest bass, and my bass weighed the 8th largest out of a field of about 25 anglers. The size of my bass had nothing to do with my bass fishing ability, and all to do with Jason’s boating skill and knowledge of where to find the larger fish. We both guessed too heavy on the guess weight for the tournament’s largest fish, but it was a fun and tiring experience to participate in a small local bass fishing tournament. Later that same day Frede, Angela, Jason and I all boated out fishing in the afternoon, but a strong wind had come up making fishing conditions difficult. We caught two peacock bass on shad, and hooked but lost some other fish, before capping the evening by sharing an excellent steak dinner.

With a semi-tropical climate conducive to freshwater, inshore, and offshore saltwater fishing, the habitat to provide for each of these fisheries, and a plethora of fish species to target, Florida provides more angler days per year than any other state in the country. The Lake Worth area, where we fished, has lots of nearby boat launches and a campground where visitors stay throughout the winter months located right on Lake Osbourne. There are plenty of good places for visitors to purchase their favorite type of meals, and an abundance of fishing guides, and tackle stores. My wife enjoys a Florida trip to get some longer daylight hours and a chance to enjoy warmer outdoor temperatures during fall or winter months. She also enjoys spending time at Disney World in Orlando, but on this trip, both of us agreed that fishing with Jason Perrego was the highlight of our trip.

Alaskans can learn more about Jason Perrego’s sunshine state fishing trips at https://www.southfloridafishingguides.net. or give him a call at 561-568-8472.

Good Luck and Fish On!

Andy Couch is a Mat-Su Valley fishing guide who primarily targets ocean-run salmon during summer months, but also guides winter ice fishing trips.