Catches & Catch-Up

There's no denying it. I've been woeful with this blog. The gap since the last post is the longest since I began the Jeff Samsel Fishing blog. I won't make excuses. I'll just move on. I also won't make any big promises, except that I'll try to do a better job of keeping things fresh.

That stuff acknowledged, I've gotten to do some good fishing since the last post. Not much local stuff, but trips to Texas, Florida and Alabama. The Florida trip in particular put a charge in the new year's species count because we did both freshwater and saltwater stuff and because a couple of the days produced a good mix of panfish species. The species tally through mid-March is at 21.

My most surprising catch of 2017 is pictured above. While fishing in Florida's Santa Fe River, I caught a mullet on a Rebel Crawfish, and the fish was hooked inside the mouth. Despite having grown up in Florida and having spent a lot of time around coastal waters over the years, I'd never before seen a mullet caught on an artificial lure, so when I realized what I had, I was pretty surprised.

My favorite fish this year has to go to big speckled trout I'll caught from a kayak in Texas. It took a YUM Swurm fished on a Bomber Shad-Head Jig-Head.