Dispatch from the Brownline South

Posted on March 9th, 2011

Get your creep on and move down the shoreline in a crouch, hiding your profile from the beast tucked into the limestone bank, and then your backcast freaks an iguana that dives headfirst into the water. Everything splits. People are watching you from the parking lot. Why do you even chase these things? They’re not supposed to be there and they invoke diatribes about evil and your role in it. You just like to watch them chase undulating feathers. Bag limit? Unlimited. Some people are into the killing, leaving carcasses as a warning to the others. Even though they have no cerebral cortex and are incapable of heeding threats or doing anything other than what they do. At least eat it, brother. Supposedly…

Tagged: dead snakeheads, snakehead

FLORIDA: Little Hits, Big Misses, Wildlife

Posted on July 11th, 2008

The thermometer in the rental car read 86 degrees at 7 in the morning, so I knew the canals were going to boil. So would anyone making the effort to walk them in search of fish. Peacocks like it hot, but I had a hard time getting anything but follows out of the bigger ones. A few little ones ripped the fly off its hinges. I had a surprise visit from this tiny bass at high noon. I also had several follows from always-elusive snakeheads, big ones, that did what they always do–patrol behind the fly until I run out of stripping room. Speaking of invasive species, I chased this iguana out of my parking space. The mud ducks would have none of it.…

Tagged: iguana, largemouth bass, mud ducks, peacock bass, snakehead

INVASIVE SPECIES: What of the Snakehead?

Posted on February 21st, 2008

Singlebarbed posted on snakeheads finding their way into English waters. I wrote this response, twice, yet somehow managed to pull off leaving a blank comment box on his site. Twice. So here’s my comment: “The critics were quite nasty about the newcomers, variously described as scaly, voracious, monstrous and homely. They stole food from natives. They had sharp teeth. They ate their young…” A description of the introduction of brown trout to U.S. waters in 1883. Also, “It has displaced resident trout from the small rivers and lakes of Montana, Colorado, New Mexico and other mountain states. The brook trout’s main victim is the cutthroat, so called for the bright slash of crimson under its jaw. Squeezed on one side by invasive brook trout, native…

Tagged: Fly Fishing, invasive species, snakehead

FLORIDA: On the Hunt For Snakeheads

Posted on October 10th, 2007

UPDATE (April 2012): This is a personal weblog post about trying to catch a snakehead with a fly, not an endorsement of snakeheads. They are an invasive species that should not be in the waters of South Florida. That said, they are in the waters of South Florida, the same waters where I like to chase peacock bass and largemouth bass. My understanding is that you are supposed to kill a snakehead if you catch it, and that the FWC is promoting their edibility in hopes people will cull them for eating. Here is what the FWC says about what to do with a snakehead or any other non-native species you catch. And here is one more FWC link, describing the habits and edibility of the snakehead. Everything else…

Tagged: Florida, Fly Fishing, snakehead

Posts tagged “snakehead”