The Fishing Fools Thread....

[PMCGoldenEraG8R]

Oops.....almost posted the same set of pics.

[akaGatorhoops]

Thats Awesome, PMC!

This was the thread that brought me to The Pub... and has kept me coming back.

I love hearing fishing reports and seeing the pics.

LOL! I just noticed that I had posted the pic of me holding the bonito as little kid and my siblings pinching their noses! That is a family classic in our house! I made my poor mom drive home with that thing in the trunk so I could get a picture of it. I was so proud.

[PMCGoldenEraG8R]

I love all your reports and pics Hoops! I really do enjoy seeing and reading about all the fishing adventures posted in this thread!

[radg8tr]

Great!!...glad to see it back. Thanks.

[deebo65]

Great pics PMC. Those are the ones you posted to push the Fools thread to the HOF right? I am glad this thread got so much traffic, but I am even happier that it was moved back to ye olde pub. Now the Fool's push on even after the Pub's , uh incident. By far my favorite thread of all time! Thanks PMC and all those who post pics and stats.

[Pantanoso]

WOW! PMC rox!

[G8rChuck85]

Great job PMC! One of my favorite thread's ever!

[tbatten]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread, for purely selfish reasons...

I was headed over to the pub the other day in search of this thread and saw that it had been pruned along with everything else. After expressing extreme disappointment, I decided to keep an eye out in case it was recreated. Much to my enjoyment I now see that it lives again. So without further ado:

I'm here to mine a little information from the obviously very knowledgeable posters frequenting this thread. First a little background information. I grew up from ages 4 - 18 on a lake in northern Minnesota and spent my summers fishing for Walleye to eat. Caught lots of Northern Pike and some Muskie (catch and release type stuff) and some occasional pan fish. Mostly we were trolling with artificial lures. Sometimes using bobbers or cast fishing, but those were exceptions. And yes, sometimes sitting over a hole in the ice watching a bobber. After leaving home I fished intermittently at various locations, but never to the extent while growing up and never in the South.

Well, fast forward many years and that brings us to today. I've been living in Gainesville for the past 13 years and have never even attempted to put a line into the water. Just recently my neighbor expressed some interest in doing some fishing. He has 0 experience, so that makes me the resident "expert". Problem is, I know next to nothing about fish in this area.

I do have great interest in saltwater fishing (we had a huge Sailfish over the mantel growing up from my fathers earlier fishing days before we moved to MN) but to start with I'm interested in exclusively freshwater opportunities.

Does anyone have any tips for fishing around Gainesville. We will be relegated to shore fishing or small boat (kayak, canoe w/ maybe electric motor, etc. to start). I'll take any tips that anyone wants to offer up. I'd prefer to fish locations where the catch would be safe for consumption.

Thanks in advance. I look forward to getting back into realm of fishing.

[GatorBASS]

Tbatten,

I just recently moved back to Gville and have access to two boats and grew up and lived here for 26 years, mainly freshwater fishing.

Send me a PM if you want to know more about freshwater fishing in the area.

Thanks for putting up some old pics PMC, great job!!

GatorBASS

[akaGatorhoops]

tbatten,

Most of the lakes in and around Gainesville will hold largemouth. This time of year they get lethargic as the temp. drops.
Wherever you fish, make your presentation s-l-o-w. I use soft plastics.... stick worms and trick worms are both great when fished slowly.

I especially like the trick (whacky) worms... as they are fished without weight and slowly drift down. Then just the slightest twitch of the rod, reel a slight bit and repeat.

[tbatten]

Any lakes I should avoid? either because of overfishing, overcrowding or general pollution?

I appreciate the advice so far, would they go deep to get more temperate water or still be along shore structures or foliage?

[PMCGoldenEraG8R]

tbatten, have fun going fishing and I know others will continue to give you good advice! Hoops and Bass are experts for sure!

Thanks for the nice comments ya'll! I appreciate it very much and I'm so glad that ya'll like this thread!

[gatorcowboy]

shameless bump back to top

[GatoRella]

tbatten,

The best place to catch a bass in Gainesville is Lake Alice by a mile. I went there and
caught an 11lb bass, it was awesome! That lake is just full of bass and gators.

But unfortunately, it is also trespassing so I almost got arrested , fortunately the cop was a fisherman, and after I told him I caught that lunker and threw it back he let us off the hook.

Lake Alice is pretty high stakes, for safer less stressful fishing I would drive down to Rodmans Damn and you can go down the Ocklawaha which might be the most scenic river in FL.

[akaGatorhoops]

Rella.... I thought I was the only one who did that!!
My cousin actually has a picture of my scrambling to unhook a Lake Alice bass as a Gator approaches in the background!

Anyway.. I got out fishing today. We hit our new top secret wreck!
It was loaded with fish. We caught tons of big AJs, Almacos and Bonito. We had a sailfish turn on a bait, but then cruise away. We had few toothy critters break us off... a couple big ones we had hooked for a short while (we suspect a wahoo) and a big grouper straighten the hook on us.

We did not take many pics... but this almaco had some nice colors, so we snapped one.

[Jupgator]

Cool thread. My favorite area is Everglades National Park. Flamingo and Chokoloskee is like a magnet, been fishing there for more than 30 years and just can't stay away for very long. I do get withdrawal during football season though as we did 9 Gator games this year. Anyway, like to chase snook and reds. Check out this snook caught deep in the Flamingo backcountry.

[akaGatorhoops]

Nice Jup!!!!!!

The guy I fished with today is a big Flamingo fisherman. I have never been out there, but hoping to try it sometime soon!!!

[GatorLane77]

Man, I need to get out on the water.

[Speedofsand]

dayum, somebody caught a 13ft, 663 lb. hammerhead off Daytona Beach.



http://www.wesh.com/green-pages/18306127/detail.html#

[Jupgator]

AKA - Flamingo is flat out a great place to both see and fish, especially in the right conditions. Get your friend to take you and you will love it.