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.

Belle Glade YEC Fishing Trip and Captain's Report

The students at the Belle Glade Youth Empowerment Center joined us for a day of fishing at the Boynton Boat Ramp last Friday.  The students were all extremely excited to show everything they have learned the last few weeks in class.  It was a beautiful day, but a little windy.  The fishing started off a little slow, but after about 20 minutes the fish decided to start biting, and did not stop!  Many of the students caught pinfish, snappers, grunts, and even a needle fish.  The students also had a blast watching the Ospreys dive bombing the massive schools of mullet running south on their annual migration.  Some of the other anglers at the park gave the students a couple of mullet each to take home, and this week in class they spoke about how delicious they were that night.  Now that we have fished in saltwater, I can not wait for the students to show me how they do in freshwater around Lake O.

Last Saturday we had a great charter with a group of middle school students from Miami and their parents.  As we unties from the dock, the kids all told me they wanted to catch a shark, dolphinfish and kingfish.  We started out trolling our usual areas with no luck, so we decided to head offshore due to the west wind.  A few miles offshore it started getting a little rough, but it paid off when we caught 2 nice dolphinfish.

After bringing in the dolphin we decided to head for the reef and calmer waters.  At first we caught bluerunners and things were not looking very exciting, until the first kingfish was brought to the boat.  Sadly it was an inch short so we released it.  Soon after releasing the kingfish we caught 2 sharks, another kingfish (legal), and all sorts of reef dwelling fish.  We hope the kids all had a great time, and would like to thank the whole group for the most amazing charter.

Santaluces High School Fishing and Kayak Trip - 10/15/11

As a reward for completing the first section of our new "Angling for a Healthy Future" program, for high school students, Capt. Rich decided to take some of the Santaluces students out fishing on our boat, and snorkeling with the kayaks.

The morning started with a fishing trip offshore on our boat.  The seas were a little rough, and some of the students were not feeling the best, so we decided to troll around; and it paid off!  The students took turns reeling in bonitos, blackfin tunas, and skipjack tunas.  We unfortunately also had a big bite off.  Due to the seas we came in early to fish inside the intracoastal were we caught a few lane snappers, and saw a few big tarpon.

Once all the fish was cleaned and put on ice, we then headed over to the Boynton Beach Boat Ramp.  Despite the strong winds the students grabbed the kayaks and a jon boat.  Our goal was to paddle over to Bird Island and do some snorkeling.  It took us all a little longer than we thought to reach the island paddling against the wind, but we all survived.  At the island we snorkeled around the rock, while some of the other students tried to fish again.

It was an exciting day for the students, as well as for Capt Rich and I.  The students were able to put their new fishing knowledge to use, and we were able to see how much they have learned.

The Santaluces High School students will be starting the second section of our program this week, while Belle Glade YEC will be finishing this week.  We are planning a fishing trip for our Belle Glade students this week, and will post pictures as soon as we can.

Captain's Report 9/17/11....and other news...

Capt. Rich and I would like to thank Michael, one of our most impressive students, for driving down from the Orlando area this morning and helping out on our charter.  Michael has expressed interest in learning how to run a fishing charter, and this morning was his first opportunity to learn.  He has been with us on boat trips during summer camp, but this was his first trip out with paying customers.

We cleared the Boynton Beach Inlet at 7:30am, and within minutes we had our first hits.  The first couple of hits were mostly bonitos, but we had a nice size barracuda in the mix.  After about 10 bonitos, we finally found a school of blackfin tunas and skipjack tunas.  We trolled for about two hours and landed 3 skipjacks, 5 blackfin, and stopped counting the bonitos at around 20.  Michael did extremely well learning how to set up the planner and helping take fish off the hooks.

Around 9:45am we headed out to about 200ft and started our drift for kingfish and bottom fish.  We once again landed a few bonitos, along with 2 kingfish, a nice speckled hind groupers, a vermillion snapper, and many more bottom fish.

We had an epic day of fishing, but what made it even more amazing was seeing a student take interest in the industry.  Michael will be more than welcome to help out on any future charters we may have.

In other news, this week was the first week of classes for our new high school fishing and LifeSkills programs.  We started at Santaluces High School, Belle Glade Boys and Girls Club, Belle Glade YEC,  and Seagull Academy.  We are looking forward to an amazing year of programs with the high school students and can not wait for more schools to sign up.

Kayaking and Underwater Photography September 2011

                                                       Michael and Alex

                                                The group taking a break from the heat

                                                    Mario and Roberto

This past weekend we had some of our students meet at the Boynton Beach Boat Ramp to learn about kayaking safety on our newly acquired kayaks.  We did not do any fishing this time around as we wanted the students to get a feel for how the kayaks worked, and how to work together while using the kayaks.  Even though we did not go fishing this past Saturday, the students all hope an amazing time figuring out the kayaks, as well as swimming  and taking photographs of each other kayaking.  Now that they have mastered paddling, they all look forward to going back out and exploring Bird Island and fishing around the Intracoastal.

I have also posted some awesome underwater pictures taken by our students over the last few weeks.  The water has been extremely clear but as you can see we have been dodging the jellyfish, which will hopefully move off very soon.

We would like to thank the Riviera Beach CRA for coming down Saturday to watch our students kayak and hope to be able to offer this amazing opportunity up in Riviera Beach.