Folly Family FL Trip - Ware's Jack! and Tampa Bay Day 2

[Johnsfolly]

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😁.

 

[Terrierman]

Dang you guys caught the heck out of 'em.👍

[Johnsfolly]

1 hour ago, Terrierman said:

Dang you guys caught the heck out of 'em.👍

We had some fun😉