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As anyone can imagine, the anticipation to this day was intense. Since I had a conference in Miami, I took advantage of it and took some vacation time.
Mike Sines and I met up with Capt. Mark Hall at 7:45am to do some urban fishing. Mike is a major in the Army stationed down in Doral. He is a helicopter pilot who did 2-3 tours over in the hot zone. Cool dude too!
I will post the pictures when I get home and they will show the urban nature but also the unique fishery that they have down there right in the city.
As I always mention, if you are in Miami, you should hire Mark. He gives you a great chance to catch some neat fish. Plus he is very reasonable and very knowledgeable....just a pleasure to fish with.
As soon as we hit the 1st spot, Mike hooked up with a feisty jack and the skunk was off.
We then proceed to work a lot of shoreline but only caught a few small LMB but we were picking them off here and there. We were using X-Rap type of shallow divers but after a bit we switched to a DOA 3" soft plastic minnow. That was the ticket and we started hooking up more often.
The weatherman had called for a sunny, warm, humid day with temps in the low 80s.
Well, we looked east around 10am and the blackness made us concerned. Then the winds picked up so we knew we were going to get dumped on so we hurried under a bridge. Good decision as it rained for a bit but we still got wet because the bridge leaked in several places.
The storm moved out and we continued to catch many a bass (over 2 dozen at least but we were not counting, measuring or weighing). They turned on and we were just having a great time with them.
Our goal was to look for Peacocks but the sun only came out later in the afternoon. We did see a few but they were skittish. Most of the time they hang around and could care less that you are looking at them. I think we were a week or two early for the bedding pattern but we caught plenty of bass to keep us in the game. We spent that last couple of hours hunting them down but got no real shots at them.
Finally, at around 3 I told the guys that we really needed to call it a day. We didn't want to stop though. It was supposed to be a half day charter and we were way over our time. Plus, Mike needed to get home to his family.
We took a few more casts and on my last cast (fly rod) I hooked up with a bull. I was sure it was a peacock but when Mark saw the fish, he proclaimed it was a jaguar guapote. Basically, it looked like a black crappie on steroids. What a great fight on a fly rod!
We called it a day....satisfied and tired in a good way. We also agreed that we would schedule another trip down there as soon a s possible.
Here are the pics....
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Very cool. Never heard of somebody catching a Jaguar Guapote. Only place I've seen them is in aquariums.
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Bryan wrote:
Very cool. Never heard of somebody catching a Jaguar Guapote. Only place I've seen them is in aquariums.
+1 You must have had a massive smile!
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Mustafa- I don't think I was smiling.....I was whoopin' it up!
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Pics are up....
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Nice pics Ernie. That Guapote is a cool looking fish. Wish I was somewhere warm to go fishing. Heck, Id'e even settle on a place where the water's not frozen since I don't ice fish. You might as well stay. More snow coming .
Last edited by John F (Feb-05-14 4:07PM)
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I love that Guapote! Beautiful fish and it looks like it would pull like a tank. I looked it up online and it seems pretty rare in FL. Great pics/trip. Especially when I am stuck here in freezing rain and cold, cold, cold
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John F wrote:
More snow coming.
Bring it...if flight is cancelled on Sunday...we can still stay with my mom in Key Biscayne. Woe be me......
GregF wrote:
Especially when I am stuck here in freezing rain and cold, cold, cold
So...Debbie has a very good friend in Wellington. We are going to visit them on Saturday. The friend loves boats and asked us if we would not mind visiting them on their boat. Which is up in Jupiter. I told her I had to think about it....for a millisecond.
I knew I would cheer you up when you see this....
And we may even get to whet a line.
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We looked at houses in Wellington. Nice area similar to Ashburn (very planned, almost "Stepford Wives"ish). It was incredible how big a house you could get for the money!
Who in their right mind asks a question "Would you MIND visiting us on our boat?"!!!!!! There is only one answer to that question...."When do you want me there and what can I bring?"
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Stealerfan's a cool dude ... hooked up with him in our local waters.
You're a lucky dude fishing and having to block the sun while we're up here dealing with snow, ice, and subzero temps
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Yep George, Mike is a good guy and I am proud to have fished with him. Capt. Mark was asking lots of questions about smallies...we kept saying you were the go to guy. Were your ears burning? Because your name came up a few times....
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I'm no goto guy on anything.
I just like to fish. And I'm jons'n hard now - last fish I caught was Jan1 & I cheated by going to a warm water discharge.
When the weather warms a bit & the ice chunks are out of our local rivers, let's get some lines wet.
Nice rod you got there too Ernie ... did you bring it down or is that what Capt Mark provides?
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Capt. Mark has everything you need but I brought an 8 wt and a 4 PC baitcaster travel rod.
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Cool report Ernie!
This is my 17" male jaguar cichlid or guapote as you fishermen call them! Meaner than hell! Will attack anyone that walks by his tank!
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Mean is right Thai.....and some strategically placed teeth!
We heard about your new almost 6 pounder.....congrats again!
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Thanks Ernie!
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It must cost a fortune to feed that thing!! Is that his dinner in the background of the pic?
Congrats on the baby too. That is going to cost a fortune to feed as well!
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Thanks boys! Greg that other fish in the background is a female, his mate
And here's the newest member of the pacemaker family
Dexter Ryder Tran
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Resembles Grace! Good lookin' kid!!
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