My morning ritual while we camped in Florida consisted of putting some clean clothes on, exiting our tent, stretching, then going to relieve myself. And I have to say; though this may be one of the stranger ways I've ever started a blog post; relieving myself while looking at some of the prettiest scenes I've yet gazed over each morning became such a wonderful routine that I've been disappointed each morning since returning home that I can't simply get up in the early morning, step outside barefoot, walk some distance from the house, and pee with no worries at all of human on-lookers seeing something they don't want to and a hell of a great view to look at while I go about my business. It's those simple little things in life that keep me from falling too deeply into depression. I'm a simple man, I like to watch the sun sparkle off dew and warblers flit around while I take my morning pee.


Noah is less of a morning person, so I usually had a bit of me time each morning. I enjoyed that time especially in the Everglades, because I was just so happy to finally get to see more of one of the most amazing places on the planet.

We decided our first full day would be a spot hopping day. Actually, every day ended up being that, and such is the name of the game on the Tamiami trail. Drive, look, see something fishy, fish it, move on. Or... drive, see big turtle, stop, chill with said turtle, move on.

Apalone ferox, Florida softshell turtle

We headed back East along the Tamiami, bouncing spot to spot without much of note for a white. There were a lot of gar and a lot of alligators, but that is to be expected.

Lepisosteus platyrhincus, Florida gar

Alligator mississippiensis, American alligator

Eventually though we found some more interesting fishing in a place we'd hit on our first trip here. There was a lot of construction going on at some of the spillways, and at those where there wasn't there wasn't much flow, but we managed to find some willing fish at one of the spillways. It wasn't lights out oscar fishing and blitzing peacocks like our first visit but it wasn't bad.

Lepomis gulosus, warmouth

Cichla ocellaris, butterfly peacock bass

Astronotus ocellatus, oscar

I was most hoping for a jaguar guapote, and I saw more than one and I think I missed some takes from them too, but I just couldn't seal the deal. We bounced to a place we'd not been before pretty far east and found loads of small gar and Mayan cichlids before heading back the way we came to get to the Big Cypress loop road. We hoped that we'd find more native fish than invasives there.

Cichlasoma urophthalmus, Mayan cichlid

We managed to spot hop all day without catching any new species, which in the Everglades is a little bit impressive. But the day was not lacking in quality of experience. There are some places that grab my soul and demand I explore every inch. Maine is one of those places. The Everglades is another. I feel an absolute need to experience as much of it as I can and this day had fulfilled a little more of that. One last stop on the Tamiami before heading to camp for dinner yielded my first Everglades bowfin. It wasn't big, but it was my first 'fin of the year, and it was awesome.


Soon the sky was darkening, and it was time once again for us to set out seeking snakes crossing the road. But that is the subject of a future post.

I was sitting in the van in a blazing hot parking lot getting some work done while Noah went into Walmart for provisions when he called me.
"They're completely out of water... and a lot of other things."
"Shit. We still need something. Get some Gatorade I guess, unless they're out of that".
"I've got Tampico."
"Okay... that'll work I guess. I think the campground will have potable water anyway."
The pandemic that was barely a blip on the radar when we'd left home was now a huge deal and stores were being cleaned out of goods, some of which we required for the next few days. We were about to venture into the Everglades with a few gallons of artificial juice drink, and a bunch of canned food. That's what we had, and that's all we could get. It was strange being so disconnected then suddenly watching the the world start to crumble around us. Meanwhile, we were just looking for some fish. No respiratory disease outbreak was going to prevent us from exploring the last best part of Florida. It had been far too long... I was very excited.


Three years before, Noah and I had used the Tamiami Trail to get across the state of Florida and reach the Gulf Coast, where we'd spend our final two days of the short whirlwind trip. We found the canals along the trail loaded with fish... but it wasn't enough time. The places we went had been on my mind ever since.


We didn't have much time on our first evening, we needed to get to our campground and get set up there before it was too dark so we could head out to cruise back roads looking for snakes. But we had time for a stop. We revisited one of the places we'd hit on our first trip, and it was very different. The was less water and a lot more weed growth. There were still fish there, and it didn't take long for Noah to catch himself a new species of which I was very jealous, a jaguar guapote.

Parachromis managuensis

I walked around a little looking very carefully into the weed filled waters of the canal and soon spotted something I'd been very much hoping to see... a pike killifish. Then another. Then a whole pile of them. I made one cast and got the largest one to take. I missed it of course. Pike killifish are a remarkably unique little fish and I so badly wanted to catch one... so of course, I didn't, though we'd see many more. The jewel cichlids, since I'd already caught them, were all too willing. At least they were a little better looking than the ones we'd caught a week before.

Hemichromis bimaculatus

With rapidly fading light, we hurried along to our campsite to get things sorted out and set up. Our time in the Everglades had only just begun.

Mine wasn't half bad either. This may be the same bull bluegill I caught in the same spot days before, I'm not sure. If it was, I didn't even mind. This has to be the best looking bluegill I've ever seen.



Upriver, I caught a less common species for as far north as we were... an oscar. It pounded a gurgler, which was pretty sweet. They've also got most freshwater fish beat fight wise, pound for pound. Unfortunately, aside from a few un-notable catches, there wasn't much else to report from that foray. There were a bunch of people fishing the spillway, and a canoe headed down while we were headed up told us they'd been catching small snook. They weren't when we got there, not anymore. We headed back down a little disgruntled, but having caught a handful of quality fish.



The next day, we were further south, in an area with even more diversity of freshwater invasives. Snakeheads, peacock bass, midas cichlids, and perhaps most excitingly, clown knifefish were to be our targets, and without our water crafts, we'd be hard pressed to find any that would be willing. Unfortunately the weather was not at all ideal, but we'd give it our all anyway.
Clown knifes roll, almost like tarpon or bowfin. I didn't think they'd hold to structure really, and that proved true. Peacock bass and snakeheads though would be holding onto their preferred structure. Weed beds for snakeheads, culverts expelling water for peacocks.
Noah got a blowup on a buzz toad that was almost certainly a snakehead, then I got a blast on an as of yet unnamed topwater pattern that may have been a snake as well. Further down the canal though, seeing a fair number of rolling clown knifes, I changed to a subsurface pattern.

I've never seen a single photograph or video of a clown knifefish caught on the fly. Given how inclined most flyfisherman (fisherman in general, really) to not think outside the box, I had perhaps too much confidence that I could convince one to eat. But, uh...
I made five casts in the vicinity of rolling clowns, and had one follow. I went the entire rest of the day without a single look from one, but I don't know jack about this species, really, and I convinced one to move on a fly first try. So this is something I am going to do. I have a game plan, I know some people, and I'm a little more determined than your average angler. Watch out clown knifefish. I'm coming for you.


Though we caught very little on this long paddle into unknown waters, it was a valuable experience and really illustrated the overall difficulty of finding freshwater fish in Florida if you don't know where to look. Most of the water we covered in these canals was essentially barren, with little in the way of structure for fish to hold to. When we found what little good structure there was, we found fish. I caught my first peacock bass in more than three years that day, and that was nice. Where I caught it was among only five places with notable concentrations of fish in legitimately miles of canal paddled. On foot? We'd almost certainly have done very poorly.

Wind was a nearly constant source of annoyance during out first week and a half in Florida. It just never ceased. After our first week of camping in our little home away from home, we'd planned some time elsewhere. Unforeseen circumstances resulted in plans changing and we needed to drive back north to pick some things up I'd left at my grandparents. This wasn't a bad thing as we had in mind a couple places to fish up that area anyway, and especially wanted to get some time in a likely speckled trout area. Well...


...the wind said no. It had said no to a lot of things Noah and I had wanted to do already on this trip and yet again we found ourselves looking for a plan B. We did, fortunately, have a couple of viable options. We decided on an area we'd found on our first Florida trip in 2017, a large canal with some smaller offshoot drainages where we'd found some juvenile tarpon. It wasn't looking so hot this time around, the best spot was fairly dry. Looking into a completely cut off puddle though, I did see fish.


After a bit of a wander looking for snakes (unsuccessfully), we returned and attempted to catch the fish we'd seen in the puddle. After a time it became clear that at least some of them were African jewelfish, one of the numerous exotic invasive cichlids that are now abundant in Florida. It took a little while to catch one, given that they would be a lifer and that's just how it works... it took me a while to catch my first eastern mosquitofish, now any time I'm micro fishing in an area they exist, I can't keep them away. I did, of course, eventually get a jewelfish to eat a midge pattern and kept it pinned long enough. It was not a good looking one... also a common occurrence with lifers.

African jewelfish, Hemichromis bimaculatus. Life list fish #160. Rank: species.

Noah was able to catch his lifer as well just a short time later. His looked quite a bit nicer but as this species goes, still was rather bland.


We each ended up with a few more while trying unsuccessfully to catch some other unidentified possible lifers that we could see in that pool. None of them looked great, and in no time we were pretty much used to them. It's a bit odd, being that we'd gone to area that have them a bunch of times and never caught any or even put eyes on one with certainty, but that often happens. I will say, I did get more excited when I eventually would catch a better looking one, but I'm getting WAY ahead of myself.

I was using the 10wt for this fishing, which was a little overkill, but I wasn't using rope flies, which tangle in a gar's teeth, so I was happy with a good lever to drive the hook home. I have caught numerous gar on my 5wt now but for casting a long distance and retrieving and absolutely jamming the fish when they take a diver or gurgler, I'd prefer an 8 and I didn't have one. The 10wt did what I asked of it though. It is my go-to rod size for predatory species, believe it or not. I think a 10wt fly rod is one of the most versatile tools in fishing.

Lepisosteus platyrhincus, Florida gar

After spending almost three whole days doing quite a bit of micro fishing and targeting reef fish species that don't respond to active presentations much,  Noah and I wanted a change of pace. Small snook, juvenile tarpon, and largemouth bass in narrow freshwater environments were to be our targets, though other fish were a sure bet as well. We'd fished this water before, even on this trip, so it would be comfortable territory and for me much more exciting than targeting reef fish had been. Active presentations and abundant fish that would be willing to take the right fly presented the right way would be a great reprieve from abundant fish that were, on the whole, not willing to eat any artificial presented any way. The added excitement of these being very engaging species made me even more excited. Tarpon would be hard to find, we had found snook in this system before but not yet on this trip, and though bass, including some specimens over the magical 10 pound mark, were everywhere, we'd found them to be very discerning on our 2018-19 trip. I started out fishing a black an purple gurgler, an everything fly, and everything is what I got. I caught a number of small bass and some sunfish on my way down river before I found a more interesting fish. I hit the fly on a leafy bottomed bit of bank water and, stripping it out, watched a brownish colored, elongated fish come full tilt up to slam it. Either I missed or it missed, but it came back on the next cast, and I got a good look at it before I missed again. It was a bigmouth sleeper. Not a fish I completely expected to hit a gurgler, but it really wasn't that surprising once you've gotten to know the species. Having a photo of it with the foam topwater fly in its maw would have been nice though. Less excitingly but still an absolute pleasure, I landed a sleeper just down river subsurface.

Gobiomorus dormitor, bigmouth sleeper