THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Initially, we just put one rod out to see what if any response the small fry live-baits would get, and were
taken completely by surprise when Dave brought in a large mouth bass.
This is a freshwater species, though with hindsight, having dragonflies which reproduce in freshwater
regularly sitting on the top of the float, plus rushes and tree's growing out of the margins, we should
have suspected that the water there was at least brackish.
I must confess to not being the biggest fan of large mouth bass. After an initial surge, they quickly seem
to come to the surface mouth open wide seemingly wanting to be taken out of the water. I can't see what
all the fuss is about. All that hollering, whooping, and back slapping, over something with very little
going for it at all. But in this particular instance, we were both happy and surprised.
From my research on the Internet, it seems that one of the top baits for the canal is live shrimp, which
we had left over from every boat trip. So home they came in the aerated tub. They say you can catch
just about anything on a live shrimp from tiny snappers to monster tarpon, snook and redfish.
Another favoured bait we had in abundance using the sabiki rigs out deep was pinfish. For the larger
fish, and certainly for blacktip sharks which are also present in the canal, these are a must, though we
tended to stick with the live shrimp, suspecting a more brackish to freshwater species mix down along
our stretch of the system.
Surprisingly these lasted quite well in the water we threw them into, particularly as Paul had told us not
to leave them in the live well of the boat if we brought it back to the dock as they would be dead by
next morning.
But although we caught on the shrimp, it wasn't really the shrimps themselves that were grabbing the
bulk of the predator attention.
As dusk started to make its presence felt, we noticed increasing fish activity at the surface, some of
which was coming from toothy alligator garfish.
Instinctively, we would all pull our red and yellow bubble floats in their direction to try to tempt them
with the baits. But it wasn't the baits they were interested in. Almost without exception they would take
hold of the float and start swimming off with it.
In all cases, they would at some point let go and it would pop back up to the surface with the fish still
showing interest. What we would then do was quickly ease it away from the culprit causing the shrimp
to rise us in front of its nose, hoping they would grab hold of that instead.
However, as I know from past
experience with big gator gars on livebaits
in Thailand, getting a take is one
thing. Sticking the hook into them can
be quite another matter, and initially
we were unable to convert interest into
fish on the pontoon. But eventually,
we found our timing. By leaving them
for long enough to try to swallow the
bait, it was possible to get a good firm
hook up.
Spanish Mackerel
On our final evening, though we had
plenty of live shrimp, I decided to try
something a little bit different, and
put on a strip of skinned squid. The
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