Pahokee High School Fishing Trip

Yesterday we had the privilege of taking some of the science students from Pahokee High School fishing at the Pahokee Marina.  The week before, I had attended their classes and spoke to them about fishing safety and the importance of sustainable fishing, and following class they were all extremely excited to go out and try catch some fish.

The fishing started off extremely slow, but as time went on the students realized that patience was the trick to catching fish.  The students caught catfish, bluegills, and sunfish, and yes as you can see in the bottom photo, they even caught my flip flop that fell into the water!

I would like to thank Ms. Mcauley and all her students at Pahokee High School for a wonderful day on Lake Okeechobee, and for showing me that there are fish in Lake O.  We have fished around the lake twice prior to this trip and never caught anything.

We are starting an after school fishing program at Pahokee High School next week, and are extremely excited to work with their students.

BellE Glade YEC Lake O Fishing Trip and Santaluces Shark Fishing Trip

This past Wednesday we went out to fishing Lake O with the students from the Belle Glade YEC center.  They have doing amazingly well with the course and deserved a trip to the lake to practice what they have learned thus far.  It was a beautiful evening, and the only thing that would have made it even more amazing was some fish.  We were using live worms and plastic worms.  There were a few big hits on the plastic worms, and a ton of nibbles on the live worm, but sadly very few fish.  I have now learned that crickets are the secret to catching fish at the lake.

On Friday evening I met most of the Santaluces High School students at the Boynton Inlet to try our hands at surf fishing.  Despite how cold it was, everyone was ready and excited to get wet and catch some fish.  We set out two rods for sharks, using the bonitos we caught the day before, as well as tons of rods for snappers and any other smaller species of fish.  Within the first hour we had our first shark, but it managed to snap the mainline and get away.  Sadly no other sharks came by the rest of the night.  We did have a ton of luck with other species of fish though.  The students caught catfish, ladyfish, and palometa.  All of which they ID'ed thanks to their enthusiasm during the fish ID section of the course.  Despite losing the one shark, and the extreme cold, many of the students are excited to try again over Thanksgiving break.

Boat Ramp 11/5/11

This past Saturday was one of the most amazing days we have ever had at the Boynton Beach Boat Ramp (I know I have said this before, but this time I mean it!)  Some of the Santaluces High School students, and a few of our Boynton Beach students, arrived at our building at 9:30am to begin with a park clean up.  They were all more than willing to climb through the mangroves to pull out bags, bottles, cans, and fishing line.  We filled more than 10 big trash bags of trash in a little under two hours.

Once the clean up of the park was done, it was time for some fun.  We all walked back up to the building where was fired up the grill for lunch and painted fishing rods.  The Santaluces students had not had an opportunity to paint rods yet, and despite being their first time, they produced some amazing designs.  I can not wait to see what they can do in the future once they do a few more.

Following lunch, we headed back down to the water to see what fish were hanging around.  I am very pleased to say that we are finally seeing the snappers coming back to the park.  The students caught yellowtail snapper, mangrove snapper, lane snapper, school masters, and grunts.  However, the most amazing catch was the ribbonfish Anthony and Ray pulled out of the water.  This was a first time for all of us seeing one of these outside of a book.

I would like to thank all the students who helped make this past Saturday such a success, and lets hope the weather is amazing on Friday so we can try our luck at beach fishing.