# The Other side of the Everglades



## Apollobeachsam (Dec 14, 2006)

Every time I've fished the Florida Everglades National Park I've always fished for salt water side. With species like Snook Tarpon Redfish and many other game fish, who could be blame? Variety is the spice of life after all, and for me, that goes for fishing as well.

When I was invited to fish Bass in the Everglades with Captain Shane, I was game for something different. He tells me it was a bit early but they should be starting to feed well. There’s plenty of Bass right in my back yard but I just wanted to do something different and this was my chance.

I headed down a day early as I had to meet Shane at 6am. Bored, I visited the Miccosukee Indian reservation casino that night. I played the cash game, Holdem Poker and got caught up in the moment and forgot the time. The next thing I know it was 2:30am! Realizing I have to be up in a couple hours, I cashed out and headed back to the hotel to get some rest.

2 hours of sleep, that seem like 15minutes I had to head out. I met up with Shane at the convenient store to load up on supplies. Needless to say I needed some coffee and a couple red bulls to go.

We made the run into the park and at was at the launch by 7am. Captain Shane just got a new boat, a Custome Gheenoe LT25. It's microskiff which was perfect for the narrow canals we were running in. It took us a good 40minutes as Shane had to get out and walk us over some rocks a few times. The scenery was spectacular. The place was teaming with life. There were birds feeding, fish swirling about, and tons of alligator eyes atop the calm waters.

Today we used the typical Bass lures, sinkos, black worms, blue worms, the zoom frog, jigs and plugs. We caught a steady run of Bass, Mayan cichlids, gars, oscars, mud fish and I hooked a gator by accident. Hint: don't throw your lure near these guys they will try to eat it.!

We saw a couple of boats fishing for Oscars and Mayan Cichids. These are feral species and I hear people are actually encourage to harvest them. The 3 of them said they had a cooler full.

A front came in and we had some rain but we stuck it out. For being February it was almost 80 degrees out this day. We stopped for lunch and fished next to the gators that lined the bank. The gators, for the most part they leave you alone unless they see you hook a fish and you let it flop around. They will try to come get the fish! We pulled in a few more fish but by 2pm it had slowed down quite a bit. After a few more fish we headed back to the ramp and called it day.

On the way in, we stopped at a restaurant called "The Fish House" on US 41 to end a good day in the glades. By the time I got back to the hotel it was 6pm. enough time for a shower and headed back home. Thanks Capt. Shane for the excursion, it was a great time out there on the other side of the glades. Yes I was tired, yes I needed some sleep but it was well worth it.

PS. Captain Shane is also donating a trip for the Captain Mel Slam Cup 3.


----------



## iMacattack (Dec 11, 2006)

Nice report!  Great pix!


----------



## ucfsae81 (Dec 5, 2007)

very nice


----------



## rcmay (Dec 12, 2006)

Sam, you make everyone else fishing reports look..................kinda....................amateur!


----------



## beavis (Dec 11, 2006)

Great report and shots Sam


----------



## tom_in_orl (Dec 9, 2006)

You are killing me with the pictures. I am going have to upgrade my camera.


----------



## deerfly (Mar 10, 2007)

Spent a lot of years in that canal myself. Looks like the water was high enough not to need to do any pushing and dragging.  And of course, beautiful pictures too.

Tom, Sam's D300 is "the" pro-sumer camera on the market right now and other than the more expensive pro models is the only digital SLR that can match slide film in color depth etc. But that camera costs as much as an LT hull.  But any of the entry to mid-level digital SLR's with the right lenses will give you a whole new world of possibilities over any point-n-shoot.


----------



## St._Sophie_Girl (Dec 13, 2006)

WOW Sam.. Fantastic as usual! Love those gator shots!


----------

