Bass Slammin pt 1: South Florida - We walked and kayaked along the canals of South Florida in February 2012. On our journey we encountered the snakehead out of a canal in the Tamarac area just north of Miami. Native to Thailand, the snakehead is a detrimentally invasive species that should not be released but their eratic behavior when being handled makes them a hard fish to wrangle. On our second day we caught a sizable male peacock bass off a bed in a canal we walked in Homestead.

 

Bass Slammin pt 2: Suwannee Bass - We initially planned to kayak/canoe the Sante Fe River but the low water made that impossible. As we walked the beautiful Sante Fe we encountered largemouth bass, stumpknockers, bowfins, an alligator (thankfully from a far), horseback riders and finally the suwannee bass. The suwannee bass is on the smaller end of the black bass family and the ones we caught were of pretty good size for suwannees. Later in the day we came to the realization that we had a few hitchhikers we picked up along the edge of the river... Ticks!

 

Bass Slammin' pt 3: Panhandle - This trip took us up to the Panhandle, west of Tallahassee. Our first day of fishing was a short scout walk around the ramp on Holmes Creek after the long drive. We caught one small bass we thought might be a spot but upon closer inspection it was a largemouth. The next day we launched from the canoe livery to head down the river in our kayaks. As the day went along we had quite a few follows of what might have been spotted bass but only a few largemouths wanted to play that day. We moved on to the Chipola River on our third and final day to target the shoal bass and in the morning things were looking bleak. In the afternoon though we came across a rocky shoal that held a few of the targeted species. We headed back home knowing soon enough we'd be back to get that elusive spotted bass.