Stick Marsh

[MadWags]

Leaving for Florida Friday night. My son and I are flying down to visit my nephew and go fishing. He lives in New Smyrna Beach. We will do some inshore salt water fishing and are planning on going down to the Stick Marsh in Central Florida. Will be back Wednesday night and should have some fishing reports and picts up by the weekend. Finally will get a little break from this snow!

[mikesmiph]

Good luck Wags. Have fun, and be safe

[djkimmel]

Make sure you throw some rattle lures - trap, spot. And bring back some heat!!!

[fiker]

I"m jealous, pure and simple.

[Skulley]

I have fished Stick Marsh.  This time of year it's traps, spinnerbaits, and crankbaits.  You can also do well on worms......but traps are really really good this time of year any where in Florida for that matter.


BD                         

[VinceR]

If you have the opportunity, you should also try Farm 13 (right next to the Stick Marsh). I fished the Stick Marsh with a guide (about this time of year), and we hit em' on 7" paddle tail worms, fishing tight to standing timber. We also got caught some yoyoing worms in the matted Hyacinth growing along the channel that circles the lake.

The day we were there, the bigger fish were being caught at Farm 13.

[LipRip]

When ur in new smyrna beach, dont decide to ride a moped to the store for chew at 4:30 am after having a few beverages!!!! They dont really like that much! Its a nice place tho. 

[Skulley]

I figured if you were going to Stick Marsh that you would automatically fish Farm 13 also.  You can't not go there and not spend at least a day on each.  On average Farm 13 fish run bigger.  It's like my analyzation of Erie vs. St. Clair.  On average Erie will get you bigger fish but St. Clair will give you good numbers of fish with an occasional 5lb +.  In other words I have always thought that you could go to St. Clair and catch 50 fish with an average weight of 3lb to 3.5lb fish.  But then go to Erie and catch only 15 fish but the average for those 15 fish is 5 and a half pounds.  Same thing on Stick Marsh and Farm 13.  You'll catch 20 or 25 on Stick Marsh at about a 3lb average but then go to Farm 13 and only catch 8 or 10 and have a 5lb average.  That's why you have to go to both.  If you only have one day to fish then spend half a day on each.  Have fun and you will be glad you did.


BD           

[MadWags]

Thanks for the tips guys. I lived down the for 13 years. !0 years in Central FLorida, 2 years in Key West where I guided, and 1 Year in Miami area after Andrew. I had already packed my favorite traps and plan on throwing the till my arms fall off. It has been cold down there so I also bringing some plastics in case the don't want to chomp. I am going to be thinking about you guys while I am gone.

[Skulley]

If it is cold, Jig and Pigs work great.....especially on the bigger fish.  All colors are good as long as they are black and blue.


BD                 

[MadWags]

Those are packed as well Dog.  hehehe

[Firefighter Jeff]

Hey have a blast Uncle Wags !!!!  I'm totally jealous.   You said you'd be thinking of us, will you be snickering also?  lololol

[MadWags]

Just a quick update. Talked to a guide today about the Stick Marsh. This guy was the first to fish it and is an expert about the project. You can read about him at www.stickmarsh.com

The hurricanes that went thru hear few years back destroyed all the vegitation and the fish as well. Not even close to what it was. There is another management area south of it called Garcia Resevior. He emailed me a marked map and we are heading there tomorrow. It has been cold cold cold down here. The fishing is slow slow slow. They had a big fish kill of snook and other species due to freezing temps.

Saw one school of Reds today on the flats by Canaveral but they were spooked and we had no shot at them. Not even a bite guys.

Hope tomorrow is more promising.

[Firefighter Jeff]

Sending fishing mojo down to Florida for you Wags  Good luck

[MadWags]

Well I survived the trip. Here is why I say that. Friday we headed to the airport after my son got out from school. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 7pm with a connection in Chicago. We would arrive in Orlando at 12pm. We had plenty of time after clearing security in the North Terminal so we went to the Hockeytown Grill for dinner. Very good by the way. When we approached our gate I saw that the flight was delayed to a 8:25pm departure due to mechanical. This would make us miss our connection in Chicago. The lady at the gate worked tirelessly to get us new flights. Because of previous flight delays due to weather all Flights to Orlando were booked solid. Something about a race. Nothing that night or the next day out of Chicago, Detroit, DC, Toronto etc etc had an opening. Suddenly a US Airways flight that night out of Charlotte had openings to Orlando. The arrival time was 11:45pm so it was even better. Now just to get us to Charlotte. After an exhaustive search I was almost ready to call the wife to pick us back up. 7 seats became available to Charlotte on a US Airways flight that was scheduled to leave in ten minutes at the other end of the terminal. We took them and began to run to the gate for departure. I was worried about my bag getting transfered from the United flight to the US Airways flight since it had my reels and tackle in it. Turns out that that flight was delayed as well, but just 20 minutes or so. When boarding the plane they ran out of overhead room. My son had a roller bag that he had to check at the ramp. Unfortunately all the excitement confused him and when they asked where he was going he told them Charlotte instead of his final destination of Orlando. So now there was the potential that neither one of us were going to have a bag when we arrived in Orlando. Finally on our way to Charlotte where we would find out why those seats became available and we would enter into that airline heck (opposite of Heaven) that you read and hear about in the news.

To be continued.....

[mikesmiph]

This sounds good (bad). Cant wait to hear more. I have some airline stories too. Very few I feel comfortable flying anymore.

[MadWags]

Well remember Friday was the day that it snowed in every State in the union. It had been snowing in Charlotte since 4pm. They don't get snow too much so you can imagine what their airport was like. I noticed the 3" of slush on the runway when we landed. Kind of like a partial water landing. We made our way to our next gate for departure to Orlando. At this point we were unaware of anything out of the ordinary. The flight turned out to be delayed, but only by 20 minutes or so, no big deal. We started to board the 757 for what I thought would be a routine flight. After an hour at the gate with the cabin door still open, I knew something was wrong. The captain finally came on to inform us that the wait to get de-iced was 1 hour. The wait to get in the 1 hour line to de-ice was 1 hour. This wait must be at the gate with the cabin door closed ready to depart or they would not consider us in line. At this point everyone had the option to bail out. Where were we going to go. We stayed. Well as it turned out they set up the de-icing station to far from the active runway. Planes that were de-iced were iced up again by the time they were ready to take off and had to return to de-ice in the front of the line. The two hours turned into 3 hours after the 1 hour we sat with the cabin door open. To make a long agonizing story short we arrived in Orlando at 4:30am.
My bag was there! My sons was in Charlotte going around in circles. I made a claim in Orlando with US Airways. The guy was awesome. He found the bag and flew it to Daytona Beach on a 7am flight and they delivered it to my nephews house in New Smyrna Beach by early afternoon. So there we were with little to no sleep on Saturday morning ready to go fishing. Right after we take a nap!  

Fishing reports to follow.

[mikesmiph]

What a flippin mess Dave. I sure hope you're going to tell us you caught some fish. Something HAD to come out of this to the good.

[MadWags]

Well I wish I could say that I went down there and caught a bunch of fish. I actually didn't go catching, I went fishing. Saturday afternoon we went to a nearby lake that my nephew wanted to try. He had never fished Lake Ashby but figured I could look at it and say fish over there and throw that and we would caitch fish. Kids now a days. As soon as we got to the ramp to unload the boat, my nephew says "gosh darnit" or something like that and explains that he forgot the keys. LOL! I am not making any of this up. I look at the lake and seeing that we are launching on the north side of the lake, I tell him not to worry about it we can just put the trolling motor down and fish. A couple of docks, some lilly pads, hard bottom, looks good. Water temp 49 degrees.... not good. A Florida bass in 49 degree water is like a goldfish in an ice cube. Well we fished for a few hours. I had one follower and my nephew had one short strike. At one point we were fishing passed a nice piece of property where the home owner was doing yard cleaning and burning fallen palm frawns. She hollered over to us, "Are you guys having any luck?" I explained that we we had not caught anything. She says, "I haved fished on this lake for 13 years and have never caught a fish." Just then the airline called to deliver my sons bag. I decided that maybe we should head back to the house and have a few brown pops while we wait for the bag.

That was Saturdays fishing report.

[VinceR]

She says, "I haved fished on this lake for 13 years and have never caught a fish."

Now, that should raise the old confidence level up a notch, or two.