Riviera Beach Marina Day - February 2012

This past Saturday we held our first Riviera Beach Marina Day, at the Riviera Beach Municipal Marina. We could not have ask for a more wonderful day, or more amazing volunteers.  The morning started off with some welcoming speeches from invited guests, as well as a generous check presentation from the Riviera Beach CRA and The Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation.  Following the welcoming, all the kids and their parents were able to go around the park and enjoy the activities we had planned for them.  The activities included learning to cast and catch Backyard Bass, learning different fishing knots, painting marine scenes on a giant canvas, learning about marine critters at the touch tank, lifejacket relay races, and the most popular activity which was kayaking around in the Intracoastal.  The purpose of the day was firstly to introduce the families to fishing and having fun with fishing; but more importantly, thanks to the Riviera Beach CRA to sign the local students up for free fishing, snorkeling, and kayaking excursions held every Saturday at the marina.  Thank you so much to all those involved in making this event such a success, and thank you to everyone who came out and enjoyed a beautiful South Florida day with us.  We can not wait to enjoy all Riviera has to offer with all the students

Making a Difference: Kids fishing for (and catching) success

We would like to thank Mark Potter and everyone at NBC Nightly News for spending time with us and seeing all we do.  We can not thank those enough who help us with the students, and more importantly the students, we would not be where we are without you.  We hope you enjoyed the news segment as much as we did filming it.  Capt Rich and I had a ball with our students, and it seemed like they were having a blast.  We can not thank everyone involved enough.  Making a Difference: Kids fishing for (and catching) success

NBC Filming and Saturday Fishing

                                         Capt Rich Showing off with two fishing Rods

Last Friday and Saturday we had the privilege of showing the crew from NBC Nightly News around and what we do with our students at the Florida Fishing Academy.  We started our Friday teaching our High School students at Village Academy and ended at the Riviera Beach Boys and Girls Club with Backyard Bass and lifejacket relay races.  The next day we all woke up really early and met at the boat at the Riviera Beach Municipal Marina for a fishing trip.  The weather gods were looking out for us, as predictions were calling for 3-5ft seas, and thankfully we had 2ft seas.  Within minutes of setting out the lines we caught a kingfish, but sadly it was 1 inch short and it was promptly released.  We decided to try drifting over the spot where we caught the king and caught yellowtail, triggerfish, porgies, and sand tilefish.

Around lunch time we headed in to meet our next group of students from Riviera.  With the sea now building we decided to stay in the intracoastal and explore the area around the boat.  We started off snorkeling around the boat in the marina, and saw stingrays, giant jacks, snapper, urchins, and much much more.  After swimming around at the dock we decided to go over to Peanut Island and explore.  Some of us went snorkeling again, while others explored the island with Capt Rich.  It was an extremely busy two days, but also a ton of fun.

Look for the news story about us on the NBC Nightly News to be airing sometime this week.  Thank you so much to the NBC crew, as well as all who were involved and helped Capt Rich and I this week to make this all possible.

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.