Here fishy

Meowzers and I caught this 13.5 inch, 13 ounce flounder this morning. Meowzers, the ole girl, is getting pretty good at this.

13.5 inches

My New Batch of Lures Arrived Today

I was down to one tattered lure until today! I ordered 6 packs of my faves and here they are.

Lost 3 fish

I lost 3 fish this morning. One whiting and two flounder. I saw all three and am not heartbroken because they were all kinda smallish. 

Flounder = yes

This was a nice catch. 16.5 inches.

16.5 inches for today

More Monarch Caterpillars - Can you see them?

This morning I counted 3 little guys on one of my milkweed plants. They look like they are about 2 days old or so. I hope they make it all the way to butterfly.

My poor lure has seen better days - but still works :)

This is my very last Tsunami lure in the right color. Thankfully this little guy is still catching fish (see below). I'll add ordering these to my long list of things-to-do-today. 

Best lure for catching flounder. My favorite.

Today's catch measures 12.5 inches. I threw it back of course. And looks like my dip net repair is holding up.

Happy Easter

I forgot we had this stuffed flounder :)
He makes a nice addition to this Easter basket.

It is Easter morning and a beautiful day. I *did* catch a flounder today, but he fell through what I thought was a tiny hole in the net and dropped back into the canal :(. So I sewed up what was actually a big hole in the net so it won't happen again. And I caught that flounder on high tide which is veerrry rare.


Happy Easter to you!!!!

Look Who's Awake

The Gulf Fritillary emerged from its chrysalis today while I was at work. He made his way to a bright window and that is where I found him. Experiencing this never gets old for me. We let him go outside and he was off to his new life. After he flew away, I thought a good name for him would be Chester. Because he is orange like Chester Cheetah.

Here he is resting before I carried him outside.

Me inspecting the empty chrysalis

Flounder = Good News, Camera = Bad News

I can't believe I left my camera out in the rain. Well, I didn't leave it *in* the rain. It was actually near the open window of the fish house when a downpour came. It's the same storm that delivered a bit of hail earlier this week. I'm so frustrated for forgetting to bring my camera in with me! Soooo I've hired S to take any needed pictures for the time being.


But, on to the good news, I *did* catch one today. I was lucky to land it because as soon as I dipped it (remember my one-handed dip?), the lure dropped right out. It was legal keeping size, but not to my own size limit of 15 inches. Anyway, I'm not keeping anything right now, so back into the water it went.

The water looked *fishy* and sure enough it was.

First one in a while

After losing one flounder, I was glad to land this one. I didn't weigh or measure it. Keep forgetting to do that!

More Butterfly Activity

This time it's the Gulf Fritillaries who have my eye. I found this chrysalis on my tire yesterday and it reminded me of another one we saw on our front porch. So I added pics of both of them here. That chrysalis looks sort of like a crumpled leaf.

Gulf Fritillary Chrysalis and Emerging

Our neighbors have a host plant for this butterfly. That means that the butterfly will lay her eggs on only that type of plant. When the eggs hatch, the tiny caterpillars will feast on the plant and eventually get big enough to turn into butterflies. The caterpillars crawl over to our yard sometimes for making the big change into a butterfly. Witnessing this and thinking about what happens never gets old.

Yes for Today

I didn't have time to weigh this one. It took me a while to unhook it so I was in a hurry to get it back in the water. I'm going to guess a little under 2 lbs. Look at these teethies!

Sharp Flounder Teeth!

Nice catch and release :)

Guess what I found in the fish house this morning?

A Cedar Waxwing! Cedar Waxwings are very handsome birds and one of my favorites! I've heard and seen large groups of them lately, and yesterday a large group decimated the berries on our holly tree. They LOVE holly berries and I've witnessed hundreds of birds descend upon holly trees and leave them clean in short order! Our tree was LOADED yesterday morning and now it is sparse! Anyway, this morning I walked out to the fish house and saw this little guy up in the rafters.

Cedar Waxwing

 

Sparse Holly Tree!

   

The little guy DID get out. As you can see from the picture, he perched on that white wire, so I strung another wire across the doorway of the fish house so he would see it, perch on it and realize...humm...I can now fly out. And it worked!

I am not fishing today even though the tide is perfect. Work gets in the way of fishing!

Finally! They are biting again

It's been days since I've caught a fish. The weather has been rainy, windy and cool and the fish have just not been biting. But today it was warmer, still windy and also foggy, and I caught this nice 2 lb 3 oz, 18 inch flounder. I'm pretty sure this is the biggest one this year. I *did* keep this one to cook for Savannah per her request.

2 lb 3 oz flounder from our canal

You can see the flag flying in the wind behind me.

Still on a pretty good streak

14 ounces, 14 inches. Humm. On the 14th of February.

There's a first time for everything

I am a little bit proud to say that for the first time ever I cleaned a fish all by myself. For the record, I release almost every fish I catch. The only reason I kept and cleaned this one is because he was hooked too deep to release. Savannah had fish for supper!

Barge

All I caught today was a glimpse of this barge headed south.

Barge on the ICW headed south.

Nice

Today's catch is 1 lb, 6 ounces. 15.5 inches. Here's a very short video of releasing it.

Whiting

Surprise, surprise! This is the first whiting I've caught in our canal. Honestly, I didn't know what it was at first so I threw it back. Now I wish I had kept it. Here it is...

Whiting from a Florida canal

So....no flounder today. But not fish-less either :).

The Joy of Fishing

After many many months of life's worst places, I am finally enjoying fishing again. I'm challenging myself to catch one flounder a day (again) and I'm doing pretty good!
This morning I caught this nice 2 lb, 17 inch flounder on a Tsunami Blue Back 3" Swim Shad. I'll add a picture of it as soon as I can. Honestly, I didn't have much faith in the Blue Back since I usually only use the Black Back. BUT now I do! I caught this on my third cast.

Nice :)

Squirrel! (Up the movie)

I caught this flounder about 1 hour BEFORE low tide. Not my favorite time to fish, but the fish in our canal have been biting really good lately so I've been fishing at all sorts of times.

They are biting even in January

1.75 lbs.