Midas Cichlids, Turtles and Manatees in South Florida Canals

During previous trips to Miami I would notice a fish in the canals that looked like a golden bluegill.  I looked up the species and it turns out to be a Midas Cichlid.  

Peacock Bass are also in the Cichlid family but more closely resembling a bass than a bluegill.  These Midas Cichlids are real wary and tough to fool. 

They seem to sense when you are on a nearby bank and maybe they have to be since they are so easy to spot.  They haven’t ever taken the larger flies that I use for the Peacocks so on this trip I put on a small woolly bugger.  After spotting one, I stayed back a bit from the bank and cast the fly further out and stripped it in close to where it was located.  It struck.  

It put up a small fight until I hoisted it onto the bank. On shore it was calm, similar to the peacocks and allowed me to extract the fly and take pictures without a struggle. 

Later that same day, I noticed a turtle resting with its head out of the water.  Since I had a turtle actually hit my lure the day before, I brought my fly close to it.  The turtle didn’t strike the fly but the fly foul hooked the turtle in the shell and I was able to bring it to bank after an awkward struggle. 

The most surprising bit of wildlife I saw was a manatee swimming right by me in the canal.  This is on the fresh water side of the salinity stations and usually I only see them on the salt water side.  

News in the local newspaper that week was that the manatee may be taken off the endangered list soon. 

The weather this week was a bit cooler, with daytime temperatures in the low seventies and at night reaching into the sixties.  This being the case, the peacock bass were deep.  

Usually you find them hanging out in the plant and rocks near shore and you fish your streamer accordingly.  

It took me some time to figure out I needed to cast near the middle and deepest part of the canal.  

Using a sink tip line, I would let the weighted streamer sink for a few seconds before slowly stripping and teasing it in.  The fishing was slow with the peacocks being mostly sluggish but I did manage to coax a few of the mid-sized ones into striking.

Camping in an Alaknak Tent

Last summer I took my family hiking up at Mirror Lake.  Not only was it summer, it was the middle of July.  The elevation is 1,050 ft.  It was cold and rainy.  The family brought jackets but were not prepared for this. Even us die-hard campers and fishermen were cold.  My wife let me know right then and there that she could not go camping, even in the middle of the summer, without a tent that had a heater.  Not only a heater like I use for my other tents, but a wood burning stove tent. 

 We looked at a few that would work and ended up getting an Alaknak from Cabela’s.  It is 12 X 23 feet and has the capability of housing a wood-burning stove. 

While first setting it up in the backyard for a sleepover with my grand-son Josh, he exclaimed “This is as big as our first house”. 

Gary helped me set it up.  He said it reminded him of the tents in the Hobbit.  You approach it from the outside and it doesn’t look like much.  Then you go in and it’s humongous with all these cool features. 

Josh was able to put his various toys in all the cup holders spread throughout the tent.  There are four windows on each side. 

The vestibule itself is plenty big enough for two cots which serves well to store and protect supplies like waders and coolers.  With just the two cots, we felt like the area with the wood stove was perfect as a dining room; room enough for table, chairs and everything.  One thing I liked the most was how easy it is to set up.  Easy enough for one person, although it helps to have help.  

After the practice at setting up the tent with Gary in the backyard, I was ready to take it out camping for real; in the fall with freezing nights.  Nick called and said he was going to be in Yellowstone and could meet me for a few days on the Green River below Fontanelle. 

I invited Gary over again to help me “burn in” the stove so there wouldn’t be paint smell and smoke inside the tent the first time it was used.  We burned through a bundle of wood in 2-3 hours which served perfect for the burn in. 

Loading the SUV with all the additional camping supplies like wood and the wood burning stove along with a disassembled pontoon boat proved to be challenging but doable. 

Going straight from work, I met Nick and Alex at about 6:00 at the Weeping Rock campground.  We found a site with a tent pad big enough for the Alaknak and had it set up by 7:00, right when it got dark.  The evening was gorgeous and we set up a campfire for Alex to fix us bratwursts for dinner.  With the clear skies we took a few moments now and then to look at the constellations.  

 We set up the three cots, table and stove.  Since it was so warm that evening we didn’t start the fire in the stove, although it was cold the next morning.

Inside the tent we used the propane heater to take the chill off and used the propane stove to boil water for the oatmeal.  The next evening we did start the fire in the stove, even though again it was a warm evening.  

The stove did a wonderful job keeping the tent nice and toasty.  I checked on the spark arrestor a couple of times and it did the job.  The roof protector also worked well and there wasn’t any concern about the safety of the tent.  

We were able to cook dinner, cans of stew, right on the stove.  It took about the same amount of time to get the stew boiling as did the propane stove. The tent was nice and warm in the morning which made it so much easier to get up and fix breakfast.  The only downside was that the fire needed attention quite often during the night to keep it going.  We boiled water right on the stove for the oatmeal.  The following evening, since it was warm again, we didn’t keep the fire going all night but rather, got the fire ready to start so that in the morning, before getting up, someone could easily start the fire, go back to bed and the tent would be warm by the time we got up.  

Crowds and Raccoons On First Section Below Fontenelle

The first section below the dam closes to fishing the end of September to protect the spawning kokanee.  We were able to see the bright red Kokanee swimming upstream, similar to the salmon in Alaska.  

During the month of September this stretch seems to be the most popular section to fish, not only because of the good fishing but there are fewer weeds in the river to contend with.  Floating this stretch of river we found people in every fishable spot.  

One spot in particular not only had fisherman lining the shore but also an audience.  Up on the ledge above the river were several trucks lined up with spectators in front watching the fishing.  Some of these fellows Ron and I spoke with the day before.  

They highly recommended this spot, with details regarding the large fish they’ve caught from this spot and the particular methods that were successful.  The most successful being large split shot with a night crawler.

That evening while getting ready to go to bed (sleeping bag really) I sat my toothbrush down on the picnic table seat and while I turned around to rinse my mouth out a raccoon grabbed my toothbrush and spilled over my glass of water.  

Its mate was under the picnic bench and both of them looked at me with their beady eyes as if to say, we’re raccoons, this is what we do.

Later on that night after it turned completely dark I shined my flashlight at a large hoot owl in a nearby tree.  It swooped down right above my head.  I could feel the swoosh of the wind.  If I would have been wearing a hat, it would be gone.  

Floating the Green River Below Fontenelle in a Pontoon Boat

It’s been ten years since I’ve used my Fishcat pontoon boat.  That was back in the day when I was a scout leader and my son Gary was a varsity scout.  I added a platform and additional seat to the boat so two of us could float.  I would be in the rowing seat and Gary would be up front.  One particular week-long outing on the Green River below Flaming Gorge, Gary and I would put in each day after the mid-day rain storm.  Starting the float this late in the day meant we would have the whole river to ourselves.  Below Mother-in-Law Rapids was our favorite hole to fish.

Getting the pontoon boat out of storage last September reminded me of those days.  The water was so low that the last mile of the float Gary and I scraped bottom most of the way.  My next trip down the Green was in my drift boat which I’ve since sold. 

Last September’s trip was also on the Green but the section below Fontanelle.  Ron had just acquired a pontoon boat and he invited me to go on the trip.   

He has a Landcruiser and a trailer with a motorcycle.  This served as our shuttle.  There are no commercial shuttle services available in this stretch. 

We would leave the motorcycle in camp and drive up to the put-in below the dam.  We would then float and fish, mostly pulling over at good-looking spots and fishing.  

When we would get back to camp at Weeping Rock, Ron would hop on the motorcycle and drive back to the put-in.  

He would then put the motorcycle on the trailer and drive back to camp. This was a fabulous way to fish the river. 

One day Ron drove the truck and trailer to the take-out at the bridge, left them there and rode the motorcycle back to camp where we started the float. 

This was mid-September and the weather was gorgeous; maybe a little too gorgeous.  We caught quite a few rainbow trout on small nymphs but only one brown on a streamer.  

Caddis and PMD Nymphs on the Weber River

Nick and I were able to fish a different section of the Weber River every morning and afternoon during my daughter’s visit.  Each stretch produced well and kept us anticipating what would be around the next bend.  

This is the perfect trout river for fly fishing; plenty of pools, runs and riffles along with winding turns and structure.  

There are even stretches that have a rusted out car or two and old mink cages thrown in to add variety.

Wildlife is plentiful as well as domesticated animals, including llamas. This week we saw a family of sand hill cranes.

The typical setup Nick and I used was a 9 foot, 4 or 5 weight rod with a 9 foot tapered leader.  We used the new Air-Lock strike indicators.  We used fluorocarbon tippets at 4X or 5X depending on the size of fly.  

Mostly we used size 18 or 20 PMD nymphs or size 16 green caddis imitations, usually with a bead head. 

I like the black, tungsten beads.  One or two BB size split shot were needed to keep the flies near the bottom.  

Nick used the typical setup of split shot, fly, leader tied to bend of hook and then a second fly at the end.  I used the downrigger method with a split shot at the end with two droppers up the leader from that.  

Strike indicators were set at 1.5 to 2 times the depth of the water which ended up being about 5 or 6 feet.  The trout seemed to like the riffles that were near deeper water.  

They also seemed eager to eat whether it was morning or afternoon.  On some rivers the fishing slows down in the afternoon during the summer.  The Weber browns were just as active mid-day.  We caught mostly 13 to 18 inch brown trout all week long with maybe one or two rainbows and a white fish.  Once in a while we would see fish rising, but mostly not.