A Berry Good Week Report

A Berry Good Week Report

Thank you for reading this Berry Good Week Report. Fished three days, AND went paddling with Green Volusia. And went berry picking. Good week!

Subscribers without photos- go to https://www.spottedtail.com/blog/, please.

Monday

– Went to the Mosquito Lagoon. The water does not look good, quite murky. An eight-inch snook chased the skunk. A 12-inch trout rounded out the catch. Saw three redfish all day. Maybe the berry good week didn’t extend to Monday. At least the weather was nice, and I owned the place…

Tuesday

– Went to the Indian River Lagoon. Didn’t get a very early start, launching the kayak at 0830. Was paddling along when I heard a crash. Went to investigate and a redfish was swimming around with its back out of the water. He spooked off the fly. The next fish, in a similar situation, did the same. The next fish did the same. So, even though I liked the way the fly looked, the fish clearly did not. I cut it off, and tied on a simple black bendback.

I got a couple fish on it. Although I had shots at ten or twelve, getting those two was wonderful. The fish were in very shallow water and were spooky. The bite stopped by 1000, and the boat was on the roof before noon.

The fish ran behind the boat.

 

Got it to the boat.

 

Wednesday

– Joined Tommy Nordman (Green Volusia) and Sea Grant Florida for a paddle trip out of River Breeze, searching for the elusive seagrass. All this time I thought we had manatee grass, and it’s actually mostly shoal grass. We only went as far as Bissett Bay, where there is seagrass growing, even though the water looks like crap. Nice bunch of folks on this trip!

Thursday

– went for a walk on the Florida Trail with the intention of picking blueberries. Boom! They were everywhere! Got a quart in a couple hours, then had a mundane rest of the day. No blueberry pictures. You know what they look like.

Friday

Removing the hook.

 

The next several shots show what I was looking at. Not much tailing, mostly cruising fish. Ran over quite a few, couldn’t see them.

 

 

– Went back to the Tuesday spot. I thought it was the old days! That black bendback wasn’t magic, but I got several fish with it. I even spent some time trying to photograph free-swimming fish in the water.

 

That’s my Berry Good Week Report. As always, thanks for reading!

Every day is a blessing. Don’t waste it- Go fishing! Go paddling! Go walking! Stay active!

John Kumiski
www.johnkumiski.com
www.spottedtail.com
www.spottedtail.com/blog

All content in this blog, including writing and photos, © John Kumiski 2025. All rights are reserved.

Back in Maine Again

Back in Maine Again

Thanks for reading this back in Maine again report. The intrepid reader will remember last week’s report came from Winthrop, Massachusetts. We spent Sunday and Monday there (and I got no more striped bass), and left for Maine on Tuesday.

Winthrop Beach.

Subscribers without photos- go to https://www.spottedtail.com/blog/, please.

The blueberries are ripe now. Time spent picking berries is always time well spent.

I’ve been spending much of my fishing time in shallow places with lots of weeds. I get lots of bites there, many from chain pickerel. I thought I’d brought a sufficient number of bass bugs, and if they negotiated the weeds well I probably did. But the face of those gurglers I like to use in Florida catch the weeds. I only had a couple bullet-shaped surface flies, and pickerel cut them off.

Some creativity would be needed to replace them, since I didn’t bring any fly-tying gear with me.

A piece of closed cell foam found lying on the ground could be cut into slider heads. Got two from it. Then another piece of foam was found and I made two more heads. Crude? Yes. Ugly? Oh, yes. I needed hooks to put them on, and something for a tail.

Ugly? Yes indeed.

We went to Bridgton on Friday to get lobster rolls. Next to the lobster place was Unc’L Lunkers Bait and Tackle. Wasn’t expecting much when I went in, but they had #2 Aberdeen hooks and some fly-tying materials, and bunches of other stuff. I bought the hooks and a green calf-tail. Larry (the owner) gave me a tube of super glue. I was ready to make some flies!

Close-up of Ugly Bug.

After a trial with carpet thread that gave unsatisfactory results, I used dental floss for tying thread for the other three flies. It worked much better. After finishing the tying, weedguards were super-glued into the flies.

Ugly Bug wurk gud.

A few bass were caught with one during the first test. No big ones, but the flies work, which I thought they would. So next I have to go to the weedy place and really fish them. I guess that will be in next week’s report.

A fatter specimen on the plastic shad, caught over a rock pile.

When I was here in Lovell earlier this summer, I caught a bass that was missing part of its gill cover. I caught it again this week. All largemouths look pretty much the same, but a missing gill cover is fairly distinctive. All this proves is that catch-and-release works.

The weeds hold lovely things, other than fish.

 

Dusk comes to Kezar Lake.

That’s the back in Maine again report. Thanks for reading!

Every day is a blessing. Don’t waste it- Go fishing! Go paddling! Take a walk! Stay active!

John Kumiski
www.johnkumiski.com
www.spottedtail.com
www.spottedtail.com/blog

All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2023. All rights are reserved.