Stick Marsh

[Skulley]

Ah yes......dock talk!!!   


BD           

[MadWags]

Sunday was supposed to bring new promise. But after watching the weather it became apparent that the weather was not ready to cooperate. The warming trend would wait another day and now wind would be added to the mix. Funny thing was, the weather stations down there were talking about wind chill. We had been talking about going to the Stick Marsh but decided to wait until Monday as it would be warmer and possibly make the fish a little more active. Hopefully the water would be warmer an hour and a half south.
My nephew suggested we head out to Mosquito Lagoon and look for some Reds or catch some Sea Trout. I was game for anything that had to do with wetting a line. My son went to the Daytona 500 with my in-laws so it would just be the two of us.  Well as I had posted earlier, we had zero luck in the salt. I mean these fish were more affected by the cold than the bass. I managed to spot one school of Reds in the 20" range but they were immediately spooked. We called it early as the wind began to pick up and that chill that the weather channels were talking about started to take its toll on my nephew. He certainly was not used to the cold as I was. Yes, there was a little chill but come on now, at least it wasn't snowing and the water was still soft.
Back at the house in the afternoon had me on the computer researching the weather for Monday and trying to get as much info on the Stick Marsh as possible.  I contacted guide Jim Porter at stickmarsh.com and talked with him about the fishing conditions. He suggested we go a little south of the marsh to Garcia Reservoir and even emailed me a marked map to help us in our quest. Looking at the map I told my nephew that it looked like we could dissect the lake fairly quickly and find where the fish were. Well the one thing the map didn't have was a scale. This place was huge. Pad fields, reeds, ditches, levees, narrow channels and gators. Did I mention gators! They were everywhere. Actually a good sign that they were out and active. We started in areas that the guide had marked on the map as best fishing areas. It all looked great to me! Lots of submerged and emergent vegetation.  Fishing against one of the levees we noticed that there was a ditch. Makes sense. Every levee had a ditch right alongside of it. If I were a bass this is where I would be. The first couple of hours we didn't get any bites or see any fish. We moved to another levee and started to see some small bass moving around. We downsized our baits to see if we could catch some of these small bass cruising the ditch edges. My nephew scored first with a 1.5lb bass off some scattered pads along the ditch edge.  Maybe this could be a pattern. I started targeting the pads along the ditch edge opposite the levee we were fishing. Five minutes later I boated my first bass of the trip. A decent 2.5lb largemouth. We worked hard at the pattern for another hour or so but had no further luck. The wind picked up in the afternoon and the water started to get rough. We headed for a canal in the north west corner of the reservoir. The canal had a good cut in the middle that went from 5 to 15 ft. We started targeting the edge with crank baits. It didn't take long and I hooked up. I turned to my nephew to say fish on when suddenly he sets the hook. A DOUBLE! Are you kidding me? A double hook up on a day when we can barely buy a bite. We continued to work the area without any more luck. So that was pretty much it for the day. An hour and a half drive each way, six hours of fishing and two bass each. Somehow, after everything we had been through, I felt triumphant.