Our first fishing tournament between sites....

Yesterday we had our first fishing tournament between three of our groups.  Pahokee High School, Belle Glade YEC, and the Belle Glade Boys and Girls Club all met me at the Pahokee Marina set up their fishing rods, grabbed their bait and took off to go find the fish.  It was an extremely windy and chilly afternoon out around the lake yesterday, but those who had paid attention during class were able to catch fish.

We fished all also the pier wall on the outside of the marina, and used crickets, worms, and plastic baits.  Right from the start we lost two big largemouth bass, but sadly never saw them again.  We also lost a nice sized gar.  The students from Pahokee all walked all the way around the wall to the very end and fished along the wall where it was protected from the wind, and it paid off.  They all caught bluegill and sunfish....and in true angler fashion did not tell anyone else that they had found the fish.  There were also a few students on the other end of the wall who caught some bluegills, but they did not have the same luck that the Pahokee students had.

I would like to thank all the students and counselors who came out and participated in this event, and we hope to have another tournament very soon, if the wind stops blowing so hard.

In other news student news....we have started a new round of United Way groups for this semester.  We are already deep into the course with the Urban Youth Impact group, and are extremely excited to get them fishing and kayaking very soon.  We are also extremely excited to start at Boynton Beach High School and Village Academy this week.

In charter new......we are now up in Riviera Beach and fishing out of the Palm Beach Inlet.  We have had a few charters this month and are finally figuring out where to fish up in that area.  Last Friday we had a 6 hour afternoon charter.  We started off trolling and caught a few bonitos, but soon figured trolling was not the way to go that day.  We headed south a little bit and bottom fished between 110ft and 40ft.  This really paid off for us as we filled the cooler with triggerfish, vermillion snapper and yellowtail snapper.  The following morning we headed out on another charter and fished right out front of the inlet in 180ft to 50ft.  We landed 9 legal vermillion snapper, 2 yellowtail, and a bunch of triggerfish and porgies.  We can not wait for the kingfish to come back soon!!!

Riviera Beach Boating Program January 2012

The first month of our Boating Program up in the City of Riviera Beach has been a great success.  We have had about 40 new students attend a day of boating and fishing activities thus far.  The students have participated in activities such as offshore fishing, intracoastal fishing, fishing from the beach, kayaking, and a trip to Peanut Island.

The fishing trips have been a lot of fun, but the one thing Capt Rich and I have noticed is that the students need to let their bait sit down on the bottom a little longer to be able to catch more fish.  We have caught a ton of fish so far with them, including triggerfish, snappers, grunts, porgies, and barracudas.

We have also had a day of learning how to kayak and paddle the john boats.  Most of the students picked it up right away, and all figured it out before the day was done.  This was an important first step to being able to paddle over to Peanut Island to snorkel and explore around the island.

Christmas Donations

Capt Rich, Ray, Scooty, Odinald, Jean, and I would like to thank the  Ms. Brie and her family for their more than generous donation of fishing rods, lures, and pliers to four of our most deserving students.  Early last week Ms. Brie contacted us asking to donate some fishing rods to four of our students, and right away I knew which of our students were the most deserving.  Ray and Scooty have been attending classes and helping anyway they can for the last three years.  On top of all the help they have provided, they are two of our most enthusiastic anglers and I know if I ever need to find them they will be fishing at the marina or the inlet.  The day they received their fishing rods they went right out to Rays new secret fishing hole (he won't even tell me where it is!) and caught a few snook and jacks.  Odinald and Jean are two of our students out at the Belle Glade YEC.  We started teaching them at the beginning of this semester, and they volunteered to teach the program to the younger students at their center.  Thanks to them, every students at the center has gone through the first section of our program.  We all can not thank Ms. Brie and her family enough for everything they have done for our students, and I know they appreciate it more than I can tell her family.  We look forward to seeing and fishing with Ms. Brie and her family a lot more in the future, and can not wait to learn some new tricks from her children who are accomplished anglers as well.

In fishing news....we had two fishing charters in the last week.  On Friday we took a group of three people out in the afternoon.  It was the first nice day in a long time and we enjoyed calm seas and decent fishing.  We caught a big bonito and blackfin tuna on a light tackle troll, and then set up of the reef for a drift.  During the drift we had a bunch of bite off and snapped lines, but we managed to bring in a ton of blue runners, triggerfish, and other reef species.  We even caught sight of a lone swordfish on the surface for about 5 seconds.

Yesterday we had another fishing charter in the morning.  The ocean was not nearly as nice as Friday but we pushed through the waves, and it paid off.  We set up a troll from the inlet to just north of the Lake Worth pier, and caught 5 blackfin tuna in 130ft, as well as a large bonito.

Everyone at the Florida Fishing Academy would like to thank everybody who has made this year such a great success, and we are looking forward to having an even bigger year in 2012.  We are moving up to Riviera Beach in the next few day, and look forward to seeing everyone up there for some amazing fishing, kayaking, and snorkeling.

Fishing and golf...who could ask for a better two weeks

The last few weeks have seemed like the busiest two weeks this year.  We have had fishing trips with our students, a successful golf fundraiser, and participated in a career day at Village Academy in Delray Beach.

We finished our 1st section of classes at Riviera Beach Maritime Academy a few weeks ago, and due to the interest from the students, we invited the top 12 preforming students to come fishing on the boat.  It was not a very nice day, with the winds around 20 knots and seas building to about 5ft when we came back in.  We started off trolling out front of Boynton Inlet and caught a few bonitos and a nice dolphinfish.  Around 10am we headed in to about 100ft and set up a drift.  It was slow at first but them we started catching bluerunners and small snappers.  Right as we were picking up to head back out for a final drift, another dolphinfish took a sardine in 30ft of water.  We set up another drift, and once again found ourselves surrounded with bluerunners.  With the seas picking up and two nice dolphin in the boat we decided to call it a day.

The following morning we had our first annual golf tournament.  We would all like to thank all who came out, as well as all of the volunteers and sponsors who made the tournament such a success.  Three of my Santaluces students even came out to brave the wind and rain, and try their hand at golf.  The Santaluces students and I headed out with grand hopes of winning the tournament, but sadly found ourselves in last place at the end of play.  Despite not meeting our goal of pulling an upset, the four of us had an amazing time doing our best to do so.

Last Friday we had a reporter from the Miami Herald join us on the boat with a few of our Seagull Academy students.  We woke up again to some very strong winds and heavy seas.  Some of the students had never been on a boat before, so instead of taking them out in the rough seas we decided to try fish in the Intracoastal.  The fishing was extremely slow, we couldn't even get the fish to bite at the marina; but despite the slow fishing we did manage to catch a sand perch, some bluerunners, and a nice big mangrove snapper (which were all released).

This past Saturday I met about 8 students at the boat ramp,and surprise surprise...it was windy and rough.  We fished the outside pier of the boat ramp, and started catching the usual snappers, grunts, and bluerunners.  After about an hour Layne turned to me and said he had caught a rock, but for some reason this rock was swimming away very slowly.  A few minutes later he brought up a nice 16" flounder which he very proudly took home to his parents for dinner.

This past Monday and yesterday we were asked to come talk to the Village Academy High School students about sustainability, ethical angling and possible career choices that may interest them once they graduate high school.  I would like to thank all the teachers involved and all the students for their interest, and for allowing us to come in a talk to their students about what we do.  We are also extremely excited to start a fishing club at Village Academy next semester.

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.