Looks like the Flounder are Biting Again

Thomas had to head to work early so I was fishing alone. The only problem with that is dipping fish with one hand and holding the rod with the other, but we've all gotten pretty good at that. That's exactly what I had to do when dipping this flounder. He wasn't up to our new "personal standard" size of at least 15 inches (Florida law is 12 inches), so I threw him back. I actually enjoy throwing them back and watching them swim off.

Flounder caught in St. Augustine canal at our home.

Fishing Report for Today

Thomas and Guyton took the boat out and fished late this afternoon. They caught 3 flounder in the mouth of our canal. Nothing caught from the dock. What did the flounder hit? Our favorite Tsunami of course!

Mullet Schooling and Feeding?

Never seen this before here in the canal. I'm pretty sure these silver mullet (fantail mullet) were feeding on whatever that is in the water. Can you see it? It's where the water is a darker redish color. It looked like a tannic substance, like what you would see in a creek. Maybe it's some sort of organic matter in the colored water they are feeding on. We see mullet every day, but this is a first seeing them schooling and/or feeding on the surface in such a large group.

Night-time Fly Fishing for Trout near St. Augustine

Sweet! Two trout for Thomas under the light near our dock tonight. They both hit a small shrimp fly (the trout are feeding on 1.5 inch small fry shrimp this evening).

Thomas with a trout caught on fly rod - night fishing.

Fly is one similar to these shrimp flies from the SaltyFeather.

No fish today - but there's something else in the canal...

Today was the first spotting of a manatee this year. Our neighbor saw it, but we didn't. We knew something was up when they ran to get the water hose and run the fresh water stream into the canal. Manatee drink fresh water. Isn't that weird? Anyway, we will now be looking for them every day. Savannah got the best pictures last year - here's one she took of our new friend...

Florida Manatee - what a cutie!

One more thing, I found this awesome watercolor manatee t-shirt on Zazzle. Love it!

Manatee Tee Shirt Whimsical Original Art by Whimzicals

Browse Manatee T-Shirts

Fishing Report - 2 Redfish, 1 Trout, 1 Got Away

Happy Easter! We fished the Intracoastal Waterway near Crescent Beach/St. Augustine and then met up with Guyton and crew down near Matanzas. Later we had a wonderful supper with family - hamburgers on the grill. Yum!

We gotta stop here and give a quick plug for Genungs Fish Camp. It's run by the nicest guy you'll ever meet. Shabby Chic at its best. Bagged ice is $1.00. You can't beat that anywhere. It's located near the 206 Bridge in Crescent Beach, Florida and you can get there by land or water. We stopped here first to get some ice.

Genungs Fish Camp on the Intracoastal @ the 206 bridge.

First fish caught was caught by Thomas - just short of a keeper.

I landed this Redfish a few minutes later. I love the little extra spot on the side!

Trout makes #3.

Here's the trout. I took this photo in a rush because Savannah had a fish on and I was struggling to get the dip net. Unfortunately her whopper broke the line :-(.

The last thing we did was meet up with Guyton and crew down near Matanzas Inlet.

-Paige

Monarchs Have Visited Us on the Canal - My Milkweed Project

My milkweed plants have been growing like crazy since it's warmed up. These are the milkweed plants I documented growing from seed last year. We've seen several eggs laid by Monarch butterflies as they pass through and at least two have survived the predator wasps and made it to full size caterpillars. I always search the trees for those who have wondered off to undergo the miraculous transformation known as metamorphosis and thankfully sometimes find them. Here's one I found attached to the side of our house. I'll take pictures every other day and add the pics here until the butterfly emerges.

Monarch Caterpillar Day 1 of "the change"

Day 3 Chrysalis

Monarch Metamorphosis Day 5

Days 7 and 8 - Starting to see some color on the chrysalis.

Day 11: What a difference 3 days makes! It will be very soon.

And it's out. Just an hour or so after I took the photo before this one.

This post will be ongoing until the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis.

Fishing Report - 1 Flounder Today

This morning around 8:00, I (Paige) caught one flounder 15 inches long. It hit a Tsunami Swim Shad (our favorite lure). Something we've noticed the last couple of months is that when we release a flounder, some of them settle back to the bottom of the canal exactly where we throw them back. They do not swim off right away. I took this photo immediately after releasing today's flounder - you can see it lying on the bottom.

We've also noticed that sometimes when we get a strike, but miss the fish, we can catch the same fish at the same spot a couple of casts later. So they settle back down to the bottom after striking too.

The coloring on the flounder, seen here, matches exactly the bottom of the canal.

I also got a short video of the flounder as it swam off about 3 minutes after I released it.




- Paige

What is a Mantis Shrimp?

We've spotted a new critter in the canal. 

Movement in the edge of the water caught my eye but I had no idea what I was seeing. It looked sort of like a shrimp, but kinda like a lobster. It was mostly brownish gray, but also had some blue on it and it scurried across the bottom of the canal foraging as it went along. I grabbed my camera and got this video.
 

I now know what I was seeing was a Mantis Shrimp. I called Thomas over and he knew what it was. There are many types of mantis shrimp, but I'm pretty sure this is Squilla empusa.

Watching the video, you can see how it jumped as it entered the shadow. And now that we've seen another one (maybe the same one) I noticed they always hesitate when moving from lighted areas to shadows and vice versa. Maybe it's a danger signal for the mantis shrimp. There's an extensive section over at Wikipedia about their eyes which are "the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom." I also learned that these little critters are known as "thumb splitters" because they can lacerate fingers. I won't be attempting to handle any of these! 

- Paige