My Fish Collecting Trip In Southern Florida
by Christian B. Homrich, Jr.,
SouthWestern Michigan Aquarium Society. From SWAM, September / October 2003 Issue
Aquarticles
I had been planning a trip to visit my family that live in Cape Coral Florida for about
a year now, and I just finally made it down there on June 22, 2003. The first few days I
spent with my family, and also made it to most of the local bait shops to ask about fish I
was interested in catching. Even though I was most of the way south in Florida I still
found myself having to drive even further south to get to the areas of interest to me.
Some of the fish I ended up bringing home with me I had never intended to return home
with, but I did anyhow.
The equipment I took on the trip with me included the following:
- Cylinder fish trap (bought from a bait shop on Del Prado in Cape Coral for $7.95),
- one Hagen Maxima air pump, thirty feet of standard aquarium airline,
- 12 air stones,
- a home made air bulk head made from 1/2-inch diameter PVC pipe and screw in air nozzles,
- a small fish net with 3/8-inch meshing,
- larger extendable fish net with 3/8-inch meshing,
- eight pails with lids drilled for gas exchange and one hole in the side near the top for
the air line to run through for ease of taking the lid off and placing fish in them as
they were caught.
- one four foot diameter wide cast net with 1/4-inch meshing,
- a four hundred count bottle of Bag Buddies made by Jungle Labs Inc.,
- Fungus Clear tablets, also made by Jungle Labs Inc,
- Parasite Clear tablets, also made by Jungle Labs Inc,
- a 1000 watt power inverter for my 1982 Chevy conversion van to supply the electricity
needed to run the air pump for the trip back home to Alto, Michigan.
I did plan to take a digital camera along, but in my haste while packing at the last
minute I forgot it. It remained home sitting on my computer desk.
The first location was a fresh water canal in northern Port Charlotte. A friend of mine
invited me to her mother's home to collect fish on their dock in the back yard. Actually I
had never met her or her family in my life, as I had only known her from talking with her
online through AOL Instant Messenger. They welcomed my visit like I was family. I spent
the better part of June 28th at this location sewing my extendable fish net and her fine
mesh pool cleaning net. In total we caught 18 Blue-fin Killifish, 12 Speckled Mosquito
Fish, and approximately 20 or more common brown colored Mosquito Fish, along with a few
nice sized freshwater Shrimp, and more than a handful of brown Apple Snails. Although I
had not planned on collecting fish here, you can see it provided many fish, including some
mystery fish, of which I am still researching.
The next area I collected fish at was in a town called LaBelle. My sister's boyfriend
had told me of a great fishing hole labeled by the State of Florida as C43:C-4. This was a
great spot for very large Plecos. Some of them were at least two feet long from their nose
to the beginning of their tail fin. Everyone I had talked to about catching the Plecos
told me, "Good Luck. It's virtually impossible to do." Well, I must be a good
collector or something. I ended up coming home with three large Plecos, two Bream, and
five Catfish that I am going to properly identify at a later time. I missed catching the
Oscars that were in this water hole, but I had a blast! The truly lucky part of this
collection period was that I had been standing right over the top of a very large well fed
Cotton Mouth. I didn't realize it was there until it swam away, after I started to climb
back up the rocks to where the van was parked. The only way I was able to catch the Plecos
and Catfish was with the cast net that I listed earlier, which as an ironic twist was the
only way I could collect fish that night, due to poor planning and the bait shop closing
early. After a few hours at this location I thought the mosquitoes were about to carry me
away. Thousands of them were flying around due to the local city not being able to apply
the pesticide fog to the area because of 4 solid days of heavy rain. But, being the
outdoors type of person I am, I toughed it out. One more thing I should mention is that
you should never take a van to this location, as you may not make it out. After I saw a
few four wheel drive trucks that were badly stuck in the mud, I didn't even attempt to
make it all the way to the shore of where I was going to be fishing.
My final collection took place on June 30th behind my mother's home in Cape Coral, at
the brackish water canal behind her home. There I caught some Green Moray Eels, some
Leopard Moray Eels, Sheepshead, some Gobies, a Blue Crab and a couple of Peacock Bass. The
story behind the Peacock Bass being in Florida is that they were brought into the
waterways to combat the growing population of Oscars, which were brought in to
combat the Nile Perch. I collected the fish at this location with the cylinder fish trap I
had bought at the beginning of the trip from the local bait shop on Del Prado. I took some
white bread my mother had in her fridge and rolled it into balls, and then placed 4 or 5
balls into the trap. They were left alone for a few hours while I took a nice swim in my
mother's pool. Unfortunately all the fish I collected from this location did not make it
home due to my sister pinching off the air line to their bucket with the tray from her
baby's highchair. I assure you it was very disappointing to have found this out after a 28
hour drive.
All the buckets of fish were started on treatments for fungus and parasites before
beginning the trip back home. Once I did reach my home I took them all out of the buckets
and placed them in quarantine tanks to continue the treatments. Amazingly all the fish
that did survive the trip home readily ate the store bought food, Tetra Min Pro Tropical
Crisps and Tetra Min Tropical Granules.
My next trip, which is in the not so distant future, will be more for the collection of
Plecos, Oscars, Peacock Bass, and Blue-Fin Killifish.
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