Fishing Diary February 2012

February 2012

Pro Bass World, International Drive, Florida

The first stop before any fishing trip abroad is the local tackle shop. This being the US of A the local tackle shop was rather large (150,000 square feet). Think your local B and Q depot and you'll have some idea of size. It is my favourite shop in the world. The counter in the middle of the fishing section is a large rectangular affair which harbours hundreds of reels. Isles and Isles of equipment all topped with fully laden rod racks stretch as far as you can see. A big fish tank sits in the middle of the shop with trophy sized bass and some tarpon swimming around it. You have to focus when you are in there otherwise you can lose half a day just looking around! A few weights, hooks and a bag of chicken liver and blood flavoured catfish bait was purchased before Mrs P quickly ushered me out. 

Shadow Bay Park, Turkey Lake Rd, Orlando, Florida

Situated a short distance behind Universal Studios is Shadow Bay Park. A recreational facility consisting of three fishing lakes, a nature trail and some tennis courts. Lupine Pond is the biggest at around 8 acres and is stocked annually with channel catfish. The last time I fished here in 2006 they had two automatic fish feeders which activated late in the afternoon. The fish were easy to catch when these went off as the cats went into a feeding frenzy!


Mrs P and I arrived at around 3pm after a hard days clothes shopping. Dashboard temperature 29 Degrees! The tackle was quickly removed from the boot of the car and we walked down to the waters edge. A quick scan around and I realised the fish feeders had been removed. We walked down the bank a short distance when Mrs P let out a yelp."Look.....a gator!" She exclaimed. I looked into the clear, shallow water and sure enough there was an Alligator. Only a baby one about 2 feet long but a gator none the less. (In 2006 I lost my only float in this Lake. Decent floats are hard to come by in Florida so I went in after it. The next day I saw an Alligator about 5 feet long just past where I had been swimming). "Shall we go back this way?" I suggested. "Good Idea" Mrs replied.

New to the lake were two aerators about 70 yards out. We settled in front of one of these. Two telescopic rods had travelled with us along with a pair of smallish baitrunners. My 9ft Red Wolf rod cost about £6 ten years ago and this was it's second trip to America. Made of fibreglass it was still fairly light but more importantly virtually indestructible. Mrs P's rod was shorter at 6ft 6 and slimmer. I bought this one in Italy a couple of years back for her birthday, I know, she's a lucky girl. They both packed down to around 18 inches so were easily carried in a suitcase. Setting both rods up I cast out two light ledgers towards the feature. I only had 1/4 ounce bombs and with the heavy catfish paste I couldn't cast very far, maybe 30 yards. I propped the rods up at an angle, resting them on my shimano cool bag which had doubled up as my hand luggage.

Sitting on our Virgin flight blankets we basked in the late afternoon sun. "What are they" Mrs P enquired pointing skywards. I looked up and saw several dark coloured Eagle type silhouettes. Now you may be aware by now of my legendary bird knowledge. "Black Eagles" I proclaimed confidently. We watched them soaring on the thermals, wings hardly moving. Turns out I was right. Look them up on you tube- shadow bay park eagles. As we watched a small bluish egret type bird landed a short distance away on the waters edge. If it was fishing it was hopeless! It stomped around excitedly looking into the water. Any small fish that were warming themselves in the shallows soon retreated to a safe distance. After 5 minutes or so of comically nosing around the margins it flew off  fish-less. A bite! The tip of my rod bounced around and I struck.........bollocks! Missed it.


A couple of hours passed and Mrs P retreated to her book. A tanned park ranger came speeding into view. His quad bike tilted alarmingly as he descended towards us. "Park closes in 15 Min's you guys" he advised. I had another quick cast to no avail and we packed away our things. Just like the Egret we had caught nothing.

The Atlantic Ocean, Cocoa Beach, Florida

Shut up and fish was more like the tackle shops back home. A quaint little shop with a really helpful proprietor. A rugged, outdoorsy type bloke his face and arms were well weathered. We instantly struck up a kind of fishing rapport and I left with some weights, bait and a jovial promise of some photo's for his picture board.

The only thing that has changed about Cocoa Beach in the last 20 years is it's location (I'm joking). I felt sure I knew how to get to the car park behind the pier but got lost for a bit before finding it about  a mile away from where I remembered. We walked away from the pier and numerous surfers to settle in a quieter spot about a quarter of a mile away. I quickly set up my rod with a 2 ounce pyramid weight and baited a 1/0 hook with a whole shrimp. Walking out into the surf I cast as far as I could. The weight dug into the sand and I held the rod rod waiting for a bite. It came fairly quickly and I struck......nothing! This happened a couple more times before I headed up the beach to try Mrs Ps' rod which was more sensitive. I set this up with a smaller weight and a smaller hook.


Walking back into the surf and cast half a shrimp with a gentle lob. The bite was more positive on the slimmer rod and I was soon into a fish. A small whiting was the culprit. Not like the whiting back home these were a pretty barbel type fish with a white/silver sheen and black tipped fins. I caught countless more whiting over the next couple of hours before the heat became too much for me and the saltwater became too much for my baitrunner. The salt had been forced into my prized reel (a limited edition bought by Mrs P for my previous birthday) by the waves and it temporarily seized. We gathered up our things and retired to the pier bar.

Indian River Lagoon, Florida

On the way back to Orlando we stopped alongside a road bridge that spanned a section of the Indian River Lagoon. Over 150 miles long this Lagoon encompasses Mosquito Lagoon, Banana and Indian rivers to form a massive estuary environment. The lagoon is home to up to 800 dolphins at any one time and hundreds of Manatees.

We parked in a small car park and wandered over to the waterside. I cast a small piece of shrimp out into the Lagoon and it was taken immediately by a hard fighting Pin fish. A type of sea bream, these angry fish certainly put up an impressive fight for their modest size. Apart from a stray crab (which the locals found highly amusing) I caught a Pin fish on every cast. This was despite a Cormorant hunting around where I was fishing. Mrs P even got in on the action while I roamed about trying to catch something else on a floating plug. With the sun sinking into the horizon I packed away the rods and we headed back to the hotel.

Atlantic Ocean, Playalinda Beach

We headed east towards Titusville. "Got to find a tackle shop" I informed Mrs P. She replied with a shake of the head, knowing it would involve getting lost again. Luckily we came across The Bait Shack without even deviating from our course. Proper oldie worlde wooden shack by the side of the main road. I bought a couple of packs of frozen shrimp and stocked up on food and drink at a nearby 7-11. This was perhaps the funniest day of the holiday but I'll save those bits for the last part of my holiday blog. Basically we ended up in Merritt Island National Park right next to Canaveral Foreshore.

Finding a quiet-ish part of the beach I set up my gear while Mrs P dived into a new book. The scene to my left was one of seemingly endless fishermen with their rods high in the air. Looking right was more spectacular. Two massive launching pads were visible in the distance along with various NASA buildings. This was Cape Canaveral. Scenery aside the fishing was much the same as Cocoa Beach only the whiting were bigger. I did see a big Spanish Mackerel break the surface and had a few casts with a floating plug but with no success. The hooded Chinese bloke next to me caught a decent Pompano which spurred me on for a bit. A string of whiting followed upto maybe a pound. After a couple of hours the sun and waves were taking their toll on me. Mrs P was getting a bit hot too so we retreated to Mosquito Lagoon a short walk away. You can tell how much time I spent in the surf by the colour of my legs!

Mosquito Lagoon, Florida

A large verandah stretched out a short distance into the Lagoon. At the end was a long bench seat which we settled on. The lagoon may be 150 miles long but is very shallow. Luckily I'd bought some weird looking floats from Pro Bass World. They had a strange spring type device for attaching them to the line. After a while I worked it out and baited my hook with a small piece of shrimp. Casting around 20 yards it settled nicely before disappearing! A short tussle later and a pin fish came to hand. It spiked me with it's dorsal fin when unhooking it. Little bastard I thought as I returned it to the lagoon. A bite a cast for the next hour was fun but pain full. I missed 3 out of 4 but was pleased to also land a Trout among the pin fish. The Americans call them trout but they looked more like our sea bass. Here is Mrs P on the bench reading her book in the late afternoon sun.

Shadow Bay Park

I'll be honest here and say I visited Lupine pond about five times over the two week holiday. Sometimes only for an hour but I learnt something every time. Settling in front of the left hand aerator I tied two small leads onto a short link. Mrs P wandered off  round the scary looking nature trail. She was still just in sight when she shouted something I couldn't quite hear. Pointing in the water I sussed she'd come across another Gator. Good luck I thought as I cast out a good 60 yards right into the bubbling water. After trying all sorts of things over the last two weeks this was the first time I had come equipped to reach the aerators. Resting my rod on my bag I set up my other one, or at least tried too! Before I even got the line through the rings my rod tip was bouncing around and I struck into something weighty. Rather like a carp fight it gave me the run around for a bit before I beached a nice cat of around three pounds. I wasn't helped by my increasingly unreliable reel. Despite flushing them in tap water my saltwater forays had buggered them up. The spool wouldn't go up and down under pressure and the drag was all to cock. This wouldn't have been too bad but I couldn't disengage the anti-reverse.

Despite my poorly reel I banked 9 more cats in the next hour before Mrs P returned with tales of Gopher Tortoises and Alligators. I could have continued catching but didn't want to take the piss time wise with Mrs P. Plus I wanted a go at another pond on site that housed some Bass. The Americans are Bass crazy. They have pros that earn millions of dollars in Bass Tournaments all over the country. Rather like our Perch they grow bigger but are dull in colour and to my mind no more impressive than a catfish. In Shadow Bay Pond I did see a Bass and it saw my lure, that was the closest I came to catching one. I only stopped for around half an hour as Mrs P had returned to the car, air conditioning on, cooling her in the 31 degree heat. Here's a kitten, imagine a fifty pounder!

Some Facts

There are over 30 thousand lakes in Florida. The biggest is Lake Okeechobee at 448 000 acres! You may have fished or cycled round Rutland water which is regarded as very large in England. Rutland water is 3,300 acres. Combine this with countless rivers and saltwater opportunities and you could spend many lifetimes fishing there. It is also said that every body of water has at least one resident Gator. There are upwards of a million Gators in Florida so some lakes have many more. You have been warned.