Johnsfolly

Nice smallies Jeff!

Got back up to the dam Thursday afternoon. Found low flow. Tried using the spoons with a 1/4 oz inline sinker instead of the 3/8 oz sinker we use with a higher flow rate. I started with a white and green Neugasser spoon and caught a hickory shad on the first cast. Was great to be on the board, but also maybe set some unrealistic expectations🤔. We struggled with snags and kept switching out weights to try and get good long casts with the spoons but not get hung. After 90 mins or so they opened a few of the gates and the fish got active with the higher flow. I switched to 1/8 or 1/4 oz jig heads (yellow or orange) and added cajun cricket and electric chicken Bobby Garland crappie jig bodies. I caught another 4 hickories in the 25 mins or so that they had the higher flow. Livie was only able to snag a gizzard shad and Sue was skunked on the day. After a couple of hours we headed to a tributary, Octoraro crk, to try for suckers, particularly quillback. I found what looked like a decent hole and I saw a couple of larger fish swimming in it. We soaked some worms for about an hour. I placed my bait into the seam down near the bridge pilings and got bit by a channel cat. I put the bait in that spot again and caught another after 5 mins or so. Livie cast into that spot and caught another. By this time it was close to 6 pm and we needed to find a spot to eat and head home. Never did get a bite by those bigger fish. Will get up there again this spring with hopefully better results.

Thanks Pete! We had one of the photographers keep asking if we would keep any of these fish (pretty much after we landed each😒). I kept responding that the state of Maryland does not allow any harvest of American or Hickory shad or river herring, aka alewife and blueback herring in the rivers or tribs of the Chesapeake bay. I thought about keeping the gizzard shad for catfish/gar bait but did not want to deal with a stinky fish and no cooler with ice.

I took off last Friday and Livie and I went up to the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River to try and catch some shad during their spawning run up the river. Those of you that know me or have read my posts over the years know that I love shad fishing. This year has been tough weather wise with heavy rains in late March and early April. That plus the need to catch up on work commitments after our trip to FL have not allowed for a shad fishing trip earlier in their run. The parking area was pretty well packed when we got to the dam. The concrete platform, aptly named Fisherman's park 😅, that we would fish from was also fairly packed but not with fisherman. Most of the space above the water was occupied by photographers lining the fence and the same down by the water. These folks come to the dam to photograph the many bald eagles that frequent the area. Many get there early in the morning and stay all day just to get that one shot of an eagle fishing or soaring above. I have no problem if they were all up along the fence above the water, but on the platform they were taking up the best spots to effectively fish😒. Livie and I found a spot to fish. We had on a 3/8 oz inline sinker with 18 inches of 8 Lb Pline fluoroclear line and a Nuegasser flutter spoon. I started with yellow/green and Livie a white/red. At this spot the best way to fish is to cast slightly downstream and let the rig drift down in the current while you give it a pull and drop. Once the line is directly below in the current you continue to give the spoon a slight upstream pull and let it drop/flutter back downstream until you get a bite or about a minute or two and then repeat. Often you will feel a fish swiping at the bait. These fish are not actively feeding but are just reacting to the baits. First cast for me ended up in a quick hook up with an American (aka white) shad. I didn't zero😅. We have fished here in the past and have caught up to 30+ fish in a couple of hours. I was hoping for another one of those days. Turns out we really had to work to catch them. I did snag this big gizzard shad. Caught a couple more Americans and a couple of nice hickory shad. Including a PB 17.75" hickory shad. Livie did not have much luck, except for a few snags, with the white/red spoon (which she ended up breaking off; she also broke off one or two more spoons). Fortunately there is a liquor store and bait/tackle shop not far from the dam that sells all of the spoons we would use. She switched to the yellow/green and got some strikes and eventually got a few to the net😁. A nice female Hickory loaded with roe. We tried to do our best to get quick photos and release these fish. Over the four hours that we stayed we only landed just over a dozen shad. Not a great numbers days but good to be back fishing. I hope to get a couple more trips to the dam and the spawning creeks in the area before the run ends. Note: a couple of quillback (and not @Quillback) were snagged while we were there and I know of a guy that caught one on powerbait in a nearby creek two days after we were up that way. I definitely want to try and catch one of them 😉

@Ryan Miloshewski Congrats on a nice gobbler!

@BilletHead and @Mrs. BilletHead congrats to you both! Some good eating with those two gobblers!

@Seth congrats to your nephews! Just keep telling them that they had great guides😉!

I fished the Eno for a couple of hours and just had way too many folks in and around the water. Should have tried more secluded spots.

MDC reports young hunters took 4,428 turkeys over youth weekend Top harvest counties were Osage, Gasconade, and Texas. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Preliminary data from the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) shows young turkey hunters in Missouri harvested 4,428 birds over the past youth weekend, April 12-13. Top harvest counties were Osage with 107 birds harvested, Gasconade with 105, and Texas with 94. Young hunters checked 3,721 birds during the 2024 spring youth weekend. “Excellent turkey hunting weather and a large number of two-year-old gobblers on the landscape likely led to the 18% increase in youth harvest this year”, Oakley said. “This bodes well for another strong regular season next week.” Oakley added that this spring’s harvest of 4,428 birds is the second highest harvest since the youth season began in 2001, behind only 2015 at 4,449 birds. Get more harvest information by county at extra.mdc.mo.gov/widgets/harvest_table/. The regular spring turkey season runs April 21 through May 11. For more information on spring turkey hunting in Missouri, visit mdc.mo.gov/hunting-trapping/seasons/turkey-spring. Congrats to all of the participants for this year's youth season! Hopefully some OAF folks were able to take out some young hunters. Do miss MO spring turkey hunting.

Dave I don't either. I tried on one of my trips to NC and failed. Snail bullheads were a bust on that trip as well.

Saw Larry Miller in the HBO One Night Stand comedy series and also in a club down in FL in the 90s. Still funny today😂

@Ham thanks for taking us along. I need to visit some of those spots and hope to fish them😉.

We had some fun😉

Our last full day in FL was going to be another shot at Jack Dempsey cichlids in Bradenton FL and then onto Ft DeSoto State Park (with one stop) for more salty fish. I have fished Ware's creek in Bradenton before. The spot that I fish was not in a great neighborhood (plan was to let Sue drop us off and pick us up after a bit of time). I found another section of the creek that ran past a small sports park. We got there and I felt a lot better about fishing this spot. We could immediately see very large tilapia on beds (one can be seen in the photo). We also saw a lot of smaller fish that would be in the size range of the Jack Dempsey targets. We had a tanago rig and another with a #18 hook with a worm piece and split shots. We had to carefully walk down the rip rap to get closer to the water. Livie was using the #18 rig and hooked up with a possible Jack Dempsey (I had not seen that fish at the time). Turns out that it was a nice male Jack Dempsey. I had the tanago rod and was getting bites but hard to get good hook sets with that small hook and these larger fish. I ended up getting the rod for Livie and caught what I thought might be a female or juvenile Jack Dempsey, but it is actually a texas cichlid. We could see some striped fish swimming around and tried to get them interested in our baits. They would spook and not pick up the baits. I switched out the tanago and now had two rods with bigger hooks. I moved towards the overpass and saw several of the striped fish. I eventually caught one of them. It was not another striped exotic, but a juvenile sheepshead. I didn't think of this being a brackish system, but it was. We did see a couple of crevalle jacks cruising the creek. I certainly did not think that our four pound line would not be enough to land one of those strong fighters. I did finally get a male Jack Dempsey on the line and in hand 😁. I got my bait into several groups of fish feeding off of the rocks. One or more would chase the bait. I got a decent hook set, but the fish fell within a hole in the rip rap. I did put in my effort to get down and try to get that fish in hand. I was able to move a couple of rocks and pulled the fish from the hole and got it cleaned up. Once cleaned, the photos clearly indicated that this was another new species, a blackchin tilapia. What made this so exciting for me was that this fish was my 300th confirmed fish species on hook and line😁😁!!! We set a timer and let Livie try hooks baited with bread to try for the big tilapia that we were seeing. She never caught one and we headed towards Ft DeSoto for more salty fish. We made one stop before the park. We pulled off of the Pinellas parkway and parked below the bridge. I was hoping to get a chance at a gulf toadfish that I could not get in hand on my trip to Galveston last Nov. I was happy to see a lot of large rocks below the bridge. Sue fished a high low rig with shrimp. Livie had the #18 hook rig and I had a single hook rig with a #12 hook with a 1 oz weight and plunged it into likely holes in the rocks. Fishing the third hole, I got a strong thump and pulled up #301 fish species, a gulf Toadfish! Sue was catching one pinfish after another. Livie had a small goby go after her baits, but she didn't get one hooked up (inever saw it when I had the tanago rod). I gave her my rod and fished some more holes and she finally got a gulf toadfish. She also caught a few pinfish and a nice pigfish before we left for the piers. Ft DeSoto state park has two fishing piers. We started with the bay side fishing pier. Like the Pass-a-Grille location the water clarity was not a clear as it was when I fished it in Nov 23. The fishing was also much slower. We started fishing not too far from the waves on the beach. The hope was to catch some kingfish species, gulf or northern kingfish. Sue did catch a gulf kingfish but neither Livie or I could get one. We caught quite a few pinfish but no love when fishing the sabiki around the pilings. After 90 mins or so we moved to the Gulf side pier which is much longer. I switched to small pieces of Fishbites instead of the shrimp pieces that would get easily picked off by the smaller fish. Again we caught lots of pinfish, no kingfish, but several silver perch and pigfish. As the sun was beginning to set, Livie noticed a bunch of fish flashing below the pier. We got out the sabiki and got into a bunch of scaled sardines which was another Lifer for Livie. She also caught a couple of thread herrings. Once the school got far enough away from the pier, the pelicans got their share. They would dive bomb over and over again. The final tally from this trip: Livie caught 22 different fish species and 11 lifers Sue caught 15 different species and 8 Lifers (put her over 100 species to date) I caught 23 different species and 4 lifers Livie did end up catching that big frillfin goby at Maximo Park! Stopped at my family's home in Savannah on the way home and caught a few small black crappie, mummichogs, and a pinfish from the lakes/lagoons😁.

We have fished freshwater around Orlando and the salt in Tampa Bay. I still haven't personally caught a new fish species on this trip🤔. I planned on fishing a couple of locations for Jack Dempsey cichlids that I missed catching on my last trip in this area. I still wanted Livie and Sue to be able to catch a few more lifers. We headed to a small park on the Hillsboro river. Hopes were for Sue to catch a spotted sunfish, then maybe a tilapia, gar or bowfin for her or others. Due to the last flooding event last year that damaged walkways, the main park was closed. We went to the smaller park area. I had some cutbait and worms along. The spot looked fishy😉. I put out the cutbait on a baitrunning rig and got Sue set up for sunfish. Sue had some small bites in the deeper water but no hookups. Lots of micros, mostly mosquitofish and some that looked like mollies kept me busy early. I only caught the mosquitofish. When Sue reeled in she paused with the baits almost directly below her and got into some coppernose sunfish, aka brim😂. We rerigged with smaller hooks and only a single hook bottom rig. We all caught coppernose SF. Sue lost a tilapia and we never saw another. We even had a 7(?) foot long bull alligator bellowing to attract females. That was a pretty cool sight. Lots of birds were around. Sue got a few new bird lifers before we left. The next spot was one that I tried to catch Jack Dempsey cichlid back in Nov 23 but the water was covered by invasive weeds. I figured that if we didn't have open water we could keep going south down into Bradenton where I had other Jack Dempsey spots. The spot is just a bridge crossing of a small creek. The road can be pretty busy through it is really in the sticks. Sue wasn't happy just pulling off the road while Livie and I scouted/fished the spot. There was a lot of open water and Livie was seeing a fair number of fish. At the first spot the fish would spook when I cast in my bait, a mini trout magnet jig/worm under a float. I moved to the bridge that would have deeper water and less spooky fish and this is what I saw. Lots and lots of the same fish. I took off the float and dropped in my bait. Some fish spooked but others chased the bait. Keeping the bait moving and close to the surface, it wasn't long until I caught one. Irecognized it immediate and it was my first lifer of the trip! I had caught a pike topminnow! I chased these down in the everglades on my last trip and never saw a one. These are a non-native predatory minnow. Look at the head and teeth, look like small gar or pike (aka its namesake). Livie and Sue came over and each caught some as well. Livie and I continued to fish hoping for Jack Dempseys but only caught more coppernose bluegill.

Very happy that you got both redfin and mud suns @Ham! I knew that you would get into fliers. They are pretty much everywhere in that dark tannic waters. Lots of fun but do get in the way for other species😉

This was a family trip first and a fishing trip second. We took the morning to visit the Dali Museum in St Petersburg. Dali is one of my favorite artists and we enjoyed going thru this very well done exhibit. I am always amazed at the size of his work. Some paintings are basically done on a 3x5 card or canvas and some are 8 x 15 feet. The plan after the museum was to go to Maximo park and fish for gulf killifish and silver jenny mojarras. Those would be lifers for Sue and Livie and bait for the next stop. There is a small wooden pier near the boat ramps. We were using the tanago set-up and up to #16 hooks with pieces of shrimp. sue had the most opportunity for lifers here and she had the task to catch the killifish and silver jenny mojarras. She got it done with the tanago Her first gulf killifish A surprise frillfin blenny - Lifer number 2 😉 She moved up to the #16 and caught the most silver jennys for the bait bucket. While she was catching those mojarras, I was trying for one of the several small goby targets, clown and code goby, in this area. I landed a couple of frillfin gobies and saw a giant. Livie hooked the giant frillfin on a #18 hook but it dropped off the hook. We caught a bunch of the gulf killifish. I had some small goby rush and pull my tanago into the oysters but never got one hooked up. Did have some fun with little gray snappers😁. Livie didn't catch a silver jenny before we had to leave to fish the next spot. We left Maximo and headed to a small pier on Pass-a-Grille point south of St Pete beach. When I was here in Nov of 2023, I had a run in with a large stingray that has been haunting me. On this trip I brought one of our larger baitrunning reels and a heavy rod looking for revenge. The water was muddy. I thought that we might be looking at the Missouri river. The last trip the water was clear enough to see the bottom in 12 feet of water. Not this day😒. There were two guys fishing that said that they lost a big ray and had caught several catfish. Neither Sue nor Livie have caught either of the two possible marine catfish, the hardhead and gafftopsail, in this area. I have not caught the gafftopsail either. We learned early to not turn our back on the bait bucket as a great egret helped itself to one of our mojarras (leaving only 4). We made sure the lid was on after that and that we did what we could to dissuade the egrets (now a great egret and a snowy) and the great blue heron from going after our baits. I put a whole mojarra on a 5.0 circle hook and cast it out with the big rod. We got the other rods set up with bottom rigs. Livie had a high low with circle hooks and pieces of mojarra. Sue had a single hook bottom rig. We still had the #16 hook 4lb line setup as well. Long story, but I never got a solid bite on the whole mojarra baits. The got cleaned likely by crabs. Sue got quite a few pinfish and a nice silver perch on her shrimp baits. Livie caught the first catfish, her lifer gafftopsail cat (got me a bit jelly 🤔). Sue followed up and landed a lifer hardhead catfish on the shrimp. Livie switched to the small fish rig and gave me a mercy time on her high low rig rod (I still didn't catch anything with that rod either). Livie was bouncing a piece of shrimp around the pier pilings and caught a couple of hard fighting Atlantic Spadefish (Lifer) , pigfish, and white grunts. The guys before us ended up leaving and a couple more showed up. One was cast netting and he caught a couple of sheephead with the cast net. Maybe that was a sign of things to come. I took over the small rig and actually started to catch fish. I also caught a couple of spadefish. Livie didn't like that I let the fish dig and run before landing them. She was telling me to REEL.. REEL... The next fish fought much harder and differently and I did REEL.. and landed a nice sheepshead. It was getting dark, our parking time was done and without any more live bait decided to leave. Maybe I could have caught that ray after dark, but we had 90 min drive back to the hotel and Sue was already waiting in the car. Live another day!

It's been my experience that spanish moss is loaded with chiggers🙄

Daryl that's a possibility. I have found that some fish do not like the red worms that Walmart sells that don't need to be refrigerated. I noticed those do exude more yellow liquid when put on the hooks than other brands of redworms. Redworms are mostly of the species Eisenia fetida. So even their name implies a possible smell. I usually try worms first. I have had some luck with using micro pieces of Gulp baits and natural baits from the creek.

Would have been great to have about four or five hours to explore and fish. Maybe next time😉

Still in Orlando metro area, we left the tropical park to fish the Little Econlackhatchee River. My goal was to catch a metalic shiner, one of my target species for this trip. The Little Econlackhatchee River is a clear water tannin stained river. Wasn't a black river, but light tea colored. We were going to spend about an hour or hour and a half before going to a spot further upstream to try for ruddy bowfin. Livie was fishing a river bend pool using trout magnet jigs. I headed down past the overpass to try for the metallic shiners using a tanago with tiny worm piece. The banks were covered in live oaks. Livie wasn't able to get much love from the Florida bass and sunfish using the jig and plastic body. She added a bit of worm to the jig and then had success with redbreast sunfish and coppernose bluegills. I was fishing my bait below a float. As the float hit the water and drifted by, the shiners would avoid it. I removed the float and drifted the bait such that it was in the face of the shiners. Several would rush the bait and turn away as they got close. I had a few grab the bait but got no hook ups. The retention system below the overpass was a cloth covered concrete system. My hook got hung in a little piece of the cloth next to the water and I had to carefully get down to it without sliding or falling in the river. Once I got my rig dettached, I saw a darter and another. I then focused my attention on this lifer darter species. I spent 35 or 40 mins trying to get one on the hook. They were not too shy once I could battle the current and get the bait positioned well. I did even pull one out of the water but not to hand or into the photo bag. Once they bit the bait and I tried for a hook set they did shy away. Livie was helping to spot more. In my frustrations I handed her my rod when she saw one in a good position. Well She caught it🤔. Livie's Westfall's Darter. After her catch the others stopped playing and actively swam away from my offerings. I only ended up catching a few mosquitofish just to say that I did catch something. I did have plans to try again at this spot before heading to GA at the end of the trip. We headed next to Blanchard Park to try for Plecostomus (sailfin catfish) and ruddy bowfin. They weather turned on us. The wind picked up, the clouds got heavier and the temps that were already cool (e.g., mid 60's) dropped to the high 50's. Livie has wanted to catch a pleco since she saw one at this park a few years ago. She made up a gelatin/spinach bait. It seemed a good idea but the gelatin dissolved too quickly and the many plecos that she could see were not interested. Livie had no luck on the Plecos and I could only get one redbreast sunfish to use as cut bait for the bowfin. We set up near the outlet and fished for 40 mins until nearly dark before we left for the hotel. We did see limpkins and a swallowtail kite (one of my favorite FL birds), so not a dissapointment. Jump to the end of the trip, we did go back to the Little Econ rvr. Livie tried for some large bass that reacted as if everyone casts to them and ended up catching a few large redbreast and a couple of spotted sunfish. She also found the smallest FL softshell turtle that we had ever seen. I again wanted a chance at those darters, but never saw any on this trip. The metallic shiners were mostly gone with just a couple swimming about. I did manage to get into a fallen tree that had a school of minnows in it's branches. I lost one and caught one coastal shiner after having to extract the rod carefully without losing the fish. I also caught a few coppernose bluegill on a trout magnet jig and a few decent spotted sunfish while drifting a worm. We caught fish, not the targets that we were hoping for and Livie did end up with a cool lifer.

I would agree.

We started the trip going to a small park in the Orlando surburbs where the small clear creek has been bordered by planted tropicals. This is a known creek that contains three non-native tropical species; the convict cichlid, green swordtail, and variable platyfish. Also there is the ubiquitous eastern mosquitofish throughout the creek. If you look you can see a couple of intrepid microanglers through the tropical forest identifying their catch😉. You might also see a relative of Godzilla amongst the leaves. This was basic fishing only. No flies, plastics, cranks, etc. Just either small jigs, #16 or tanago hooks with a little bit of worm being dappled thru the brushy banks. We were all successful at catching a couple of the tropical species. Livie caught some very vibrant tropicals. Her nicest convict cichlid Her first green swordtail And one of the nicest platyfish that we saw while fishing there. Sue caught a couple of convicts with this one being the most colorful. I really liked her platyfish which shows the reason they are named VARIABLE platyfish😉😁. In the time alloted, I caught a few of the convicts and one swordtail but no platyfish. Even without fishing this was a very idyllic location. We were successful and headed to the next spot.

Our trip was really hectic and on the go and that didn't end when I got home to edit and compile a few phones worth of photos. I will begin the reports today 😉

I'm late to the party Pete 🤔. Great bunch of smallies! Happy Belated BDay Buddy!