Comfort Food

Is it odd to find a little clearing in a swamp with just enough room to park a van in, pitch a tent, and have a small fire start feeling like home? I began to feel that sort of affection for the little WMA campsite Noah and I stayed in on our 2018-19 trip and our 2020 trip only strengthened that. The sunsets every night and the sunrises every morning there were spectacular. The mist rising off the wet prairie softened the horizon line of sorts where the deep green, sparse pines became a solid mass and met the burn umber of the grasses. That mist gathered on the tent and, without fail, it was soaking wet when we put it away every morning except the one we decided to sleep in. Before the sun hit the pond next to camp, the gar rolled everywhere. As Noah is slower to get up than I, taking advantage of the gar and bass in the pond became habitual.

 I'd walk around the edge of the pond barefoot with my fly rod and a handful of flies and my camera in my pocket, maybe casting a time or two in the pond itself but really just aiming for the slough on the east end, where the gar and bass were more concentrated and seemingly more willing.

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

We worked the roll dam hole for a little while as it had proven time and time again to be a fish magnet. Noah caught a spectacularly colored male bluegill and I caught some oversized spotted sunfish, but there just didn't seem to be any larger predators there this time.

L. macrochirus purpurescens, Coppernose bluegill (rank under debate)

Lepomis punctatus, spotted sunfish

We made our way back upriver to search parts unknown, areas we'd pinpointed using satellite imagery that could hold snook and Tarpon. On the way though, I was prepared to make casts to likely bass holding spots. I really wanted to catch one over a foot long as I hadn't yet here and that really was quite a low bar. After covering a bit of ground without any hookups, I dropped the gurgler next to a a small point and a decent bass gulped it down with a most satisfactory pop. The battle was not unexciting, I'm firmly convinced Micropterus floridanus (under debate) have northern largemouth, Micropterus salmoides, well beat in the fighting ring. Smallmouth though, are still king... that's my black bass and probably always will be. That said, floridanus is, until I catch other black bass species, firmly at number two. These fish do pull. This one wasn't quite slob status but it was still a quality fish, especially given our prior experience on this water.

Noah made a quick stop at the van as we passed the kayak launch, and while he was preoccupied with that I bothered some gar hiding under a shade tree. They were very willing to eat the gurgler but I had a harder time hooking them from the kayak than I had while on the back of the pond in the morning. I got annoyed enough to start working upstream before Noah had gotten done, but not that far. He caught up to me right as I spotted a small, shiny, dark animal moving around up on the bank. I assumed initially it must be a snake struggling with a captured fish, but instead it turned out to be a vermiculated sailfin, well above the waterline and trying to get back in. I hypothesized that a bird had likely caught it, but upon fining it completely armored and impossible to swallow or break into, had left it there. I did the same, these are invasive fish and it's death would not be a bad thing. 

Around the corner, now fishing a buzz toad, Noah had a good blowup and hooked into another quality bass. It was starting to feel that we'd cracked the code on these bass. 

We headed up a long canal arm, a straightened slough basically, at the end of which we knew was a spillway. The whole way up though the water looked great and indeed proved to be so. My first fish of note was a large coppernose bluegill, a studly gorgeous male perfectly capable of eating the same size two gurgler I'd been using the whole time.  

The bass continued to chew as well, though neither Noah nor myself caught another the size of each of our first.good ones. We did each see an absolute behemoth though, a fish every bit of fifteen pounds, so incredulously large looking in the water that it had to be something else. But it was a bass, the largest I had ever seen in person. 

As we made our way to the upper end of the canal, we came into a stretch that was loaded with Mayan cichlids. I caught the first on the gurgler, making Mayan cichlids only the second cichlid I've caught on the surface, behind butterfly peacock bass. After it was clear that there were a bunch of them around and we'd be able to get enough for a meal, we decided to keep a bunch for dinner. Mayan cichlids are my favorite freshwater fish to eat of the number of species I have taken.

Cichlasoma urophthalmus

When we did get to the spillway that was our main objective, it didn't take many casts to prove that what we hoped was true was true. Spillways are tarpon and snook magnets. I retrieved the gurgler about five feet from where my third cast fell and then let it sit for a moment. While it was still a 15lb tarpon came up and smoked it. I whiffed completely. Now excited, Noah and I peppered that spillway for a while, to no avail. So we made our way back downriver, taking time to catch as many cichlids as we could. I also stopped, cast at, and missed the largest bowfin I had ever seen. That was an unpleasant experience. We deemed this stretch of water worth a return visit and headed back to camp to fry up some fish. Fried panfish is a comfort food for me these days. Fried panfish are reliable, they always get the job done. There are certain experiences that make these budget fishing/camping trips worthwhile over a more luxurious alternative. These are some of those thing...

...comfort food and sunsets. Living in the swamp is pretty enjoyable. 

Until next time,

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon.

Everything Else in Deboullie (PT. 2)

Ever wonder what a hailstorm is like in the mountains? Ever wonder what one sounds like? I'd heard hail roar from a long tracked hail and tornado producing supercell thunderstorm way back in 2009. But even that monster didn't prepare me for what a smaller storm in a big, echo making, anthropogenic noise free landscape would be like.

On our last day in the Deboullie area, Noah and I left our little base camp area to fish some new areas. I knew Togue Pond and the surrounding bodies of water had species neither of us had caught. Though lake trout would have been the ideal catch, the weather wasn't good for being out on the open water trying to vertical jig lakers. In the swampy, shallow ponds nearby though there were supposedly threespine stickleback and fathead minnows. I was particularly pumped to try to get a stickleback.

I found one loner almost right away, but I struggled to both get past the northern redbelly dace and to get that stupid little stickleback to eat. It wasn't working. After finding a couple more very finicky targets and almost intentionally dooming my super fine tenago lead on a tailing bullhead in inches of water, I happened into a fathead minnow. It was a female, pretty typical looking, but very cool to get a fourth lifer from this area.

Lifelist fish #138, fathead minnow, Pimephales promelas. Rank: species

As I photographed that fish, thunder echoed off the mountain behind me. A couple small thundershowers had rolled through and put a brief pause on things, but with a quick look, this one looked mean. Not only did it look like dangerous storm, it sounded like one. Not just thunder... from miles out I could hear the sound of heavy precipitation pummeling trees. I walked down to the lake to get a better look.

The roaring, waterfall like sound got louder and louder, and in a short time....

That wasn't a massive storm, really. It didn't even impact our camp just over the ridge. But it was mean. Not all that much in the way of wind, but violent bright positive CG strikes, torrential rain, and pea sized hail all made it feel bigger than it was. In a short time, it was gone.

And I was back to the futile exercise that was trying to get a nesting threespine stickleback to eat a tiny little fly. Unfortunately, the photo below is all I've got to show for it.

My bitter consolation was a much more distinctly colored fathead of the male persuasion. The males go through a crazy transformation to spawn, like many fish do.

Noah got his lifer a short time later, and it was even more crazy looking than mine!

I set out on my own to check out another pond. It didn't really have what I was looking for, but it sure was a pretty hike. Actually, I could have caught at least another dozen fatheads in there. Every boulder had at least one male guarding a nest. I just didn't feel like messing with them any more. I wanted a stickleback. But I wasn't getting a stickleback.

The last long sunset at our camp in Deboullie was beautiful, but it was bittersweet. There are a number of things I'd wanted to accomplish, and it had been a testing experience. We hadn't even gotten to see a good, clear night sky. It clouded over every night. We didn't catch a laker. We didn't find any longnose sucker.
But I had caught a blueback. There was no way I could complain about anything after that moment.
I wouldn't trade experiences like this for anything. Rare trout. Big scenery. Loons singing every morning and evening. Hailstorms. Cool new cyprinid species. Bear tracks in the mud.
At those times, I'm the richest man in the world.

Until next time.
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.



 If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

Florida: Swamp Life & Mayan Cichlid, Walking Catfish, Warmouth Catch & Cook

A big part of fish bum living is finding free or cheap accommodations while on the road on a fishing trip. Noah and I have slept in his van in a variety of parking lots all over the northeast. We've slept in sleeping bags right on the beach too. But with a multi week trip well over 1000 miles from home it is smart to have much more secure accommodations. And Florida provides these in the form of free camp sights, to be reserved through the FWC and various water management districts. Choose one close to a good fishing area, stick the permit in the car windshield, and enjoy camping in the swamp.

I loved it. It gives me so much satisfaction, just camping and fishing for days and just really living it. You get to experience so much more this way. Wildlife. Weather. The night sky. Camp meals. Exhaustion. It's all a part of the story.

As densely populated as many parts of Florida are there are still some truly wild places left, with miles of pinewoods, hardwood hammocks, and swamps. Unlike CT, FL still has enough North American cougars that the state has to recognize their presence. There are still plenty of bears in FL too. The wild places that are left truly are teaming with wildlife. And spending almost two weeks right among all this native and non-native flora and fauna is quite an experience. 

Herps are particularly abundant in Florida, which is no surprise: it is perfectly suited for them. Very warm most of the year, and a dichotomy of both very wet and very dry. The rat snakes, corn snakes, coral snakes, rattlesnakes and tortoises love the dry parts, the alligators, turtles, frogs, and water snakes love the wet parts.

Where we camped near Jupiter we had a lot of friendly alligators close by. Actually, the started out mostly on the other side of the pond from our camp. Then, when they figured out we had discarded some fish carcasses, they started to relate to that corner of the pond. There's a reason they say don't feed the wildlife folks! The way I chucked the fish wouldn't have given the gators much to put two and two together with, but if you stood on the bank of that pond every day and splashed a fish carcass around, those little buggers would start attacking people standing on the banks. The speed with which they had figured out where there was a new food source was, though not surprising, pretty impressive. As well as the speed with which they figured out what time that food was going to show up. Given another two nights of the same behavior those gators would probably have known that our presence in the camp site meant food. So... don't huck your fish carcasses in the pond.

Another piece of advice: the ground is hard. Don't forget to bring a sleeping mat or air mattress. Neither Noah nor I brought one. That was a mistake. There ended up being a few things that I had to buy on this trip, including a new sleeping bag. For some reason I didn't bother with a pad as well. I will say, though it isn't restful sleep, hard ground sleep is easy to wake up from in time to get on the water before the sun does. 

On two of our last nights, we decided to catch and kill for our dinner. Whether we admit it or not part of the satisfaction we get out of fishing comes from our deeply rooted need to provide food for ourselves. It's just in our nature. 

There are fish that I personally don't think should ever be harvested, fish that I don't think should be harvested in certain circumstances, fish that I think should be harvested selectively, and some fish in some circumstances that should be harvested with extreme prejudice. I am also of the opinion that a fish released to die does not equal a fish wasted, but that is something I may touch on ore thoroughly at another time. In Florida, we had a plethora of invasives and some extremely prolific natives at our doorstep. We were in a very undeveloped area, so we were safe to assume these fish were clean, and keeping them would do no harm. So we decided to keep a bunch of a few species we hadn't heard much about in a food context: warmouth, walking catfish, and Mayan cichlids. We knew walking catfish were popular in the Vietnamese community, and their introduction was actually a result of that. But we didn't know a thing about cleaning them or how they would taste. I had never heard of anyone eating a warmouth, but a sunfish is a sunfish... I couldn't see how they could taste bad. As for Mayans, I knew the local Latin Americans ate them but once again I had no idea how they would taste. 

The regiment on the first night was filet, coat in Doritos crumbs, and fry. We had walking catfish and warmouth only that night. The Dorito crumbs did not do much to provide flavor but it made a good enough breading, so we got a pretty good idea of what the fish tasted like. Walking catfish... tasted like nothing. They had no flavor. The texture wasn't my favorite, and I'm not really sure how to describe it. Overall it was good, but nothing to write home about. Warmouth? Entirely as expected. It was just typical, good eating sunfish. 

The next night we ended up getting a good pile of Mayan cichlids, which was great because it just meant we had more meat to work with. We had went and gotten some Old Bay to make up for the lack of flavor from the Doritos, and that was ideal. It certainly made the walking catfish more flavorful (duh). We cleaned and cooked in the same way. I have to say, Mayan cichlid may well be the best freshwater fish I've ever tasted. It was like extremely tender chicken, just the perfect light, flaky, subtle flavored fish. I will go out of my way to eat fresh Mayan cichlid out of clean water (a lot of Floridian canals are just so polluted I'd have to be starving to eat something out of them) any time I am in state. They were that good.  

Living out of a van in the swamps and forests of Florida was a hell of an experience. I will do undoubtedly be doing it again, because there is so much there that I have yet to experience. I do love that place.