When it's thirty below, going to Florida (or anywhere warm for that matter) seems like a great idea. This past February my wife and I decided to book a trip to Florida for the first two weeks of May. Partly to extract my mother in law (who is down there hiding from the Canadian cold) and partly to catch a huge Florida strain large mouth bass on a flyrod (not my wife's idea). Really, the main reason for booking was to have something to look forward to while shivering away the months of February, March and April in the workshop.
Two days after returning from Florida I leave for what will be the twentieth installment of our annual trout fishing trip to Algonquin park. Over the years, this trip has gone from an all out back country canoe trip complete with wafer thin mattresses, tiny tents, huge backpacks, kevlar canoes and freeze dried spaceman food to a celebration of softness. We now setup an RV base camp just off the highway (complete with cold beer, warm beds and a furnace). We bring an armada of boats (one with three motors!) and we do day trips into the park. This new approach hasn't made us any skinnier but it has meant that we get to fish more water. Two miles in or ten miles in, we still seem to catch the same number of fish.
The first week of June, there's a trip to Lake Champlain. The list goes on.
Flies for Florida
I have been watching as many bass fishing shows as I can in the hopes of figuring out the whole Florida bass fishing thing. So far, the only thing I can say with any certainty is that my outfit will be slightly different than those I've seen on the tv. I will be in a rented plastic kayak (preferably in an alligator repelling colour) instead of a lime green 300hp bass boat. I will have my eight weight flyrod instead of eight rigged and ready baitcasting rods and I will be crossing my fingers and pitching flies instead of hardware. Now, I am not a fishing snob. I love all types of fishing. The only reason I'm bringing the fly gear is that it is the most compact and I hope to bring it all on the plane with me. The only snag now will be figuring out which flies to bring.
After a bit of research and a check on what flies and materials I have on hand, I have decided to tie the following flies for Florida:
- top water deer hair diving bugs and hard poppers
- swimbait glass minnow or deceiver type streamers bunny leech
- jig type clouser deep minnow.