2 Florida Trips and a Tornado
It’s been a busy month and a half!!
My 1st trip to Florida (with  some of the Jackson Fishing Team) I visited :
Islamorada Key- Got there early in the morning and paddled out to the flats around another key looking for bonefish but didn’t have any luck. I did have fun watching bonnet head sharks though. Then moved on to some light poles and a bridge and caught all sort of things like puffer fish & grey snapper.

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The next two days I fished mangroves of Collier-Seminole State Park, Palm Bay, and Goodland Bay with the team. I got to watch Drew catch his first snook.   I had a really nice snook on but he jumped and got off. The only thing I could land in all these areas were catfish.  I probably caught around fifty of the freakin things. Ben caught a really cool Sail catfish.
The last day down there I fished in Miami at the Blue lagoon and some canals. I caught my 1st ever Peacock bass!!

I got home Wednesday evening and that following night a tornado hit our neighborhood. Thankfully we only had trees down and all of our neighbors were ok.  Our power was out for 6 days so I have a new level of appreciation for electricity and hot water.

My 2nd trip to Florida was with Jeremy and we started out fishing a couple days at Lake Arbuckle.  The first trip I dropped my anchor and got growled at by a gator in 3ft of water.  That was a little scary and I retrieved and paddled away quickly.  I caught three bass there total all on a pumpkinseed lizard and a little gator on a fluke.

Then we headed to the Everglades and camped in Flamingo.  An older guy had gone missing two days before at the camp site so the place was crawling with search parties, dogs, and helicopters. Sadly, they still hadn’t found him a week later when we left.
While fishing there Jeremy caught some nice sea trout in a grass bed off Murray key.

We also paddled into Coot’s pond and bay but didn’t have any luck. It was still a really cool paddle.
While down there we took a day and traveled the keys and fished on Islamorada key and caught about the same things and size that I had before and my first grouper.
Another day we took a trip to the IGFA museum and it was really cool!!  We also got Jeremy’s Boga Grip’s certified while there.

Over all it’s been a busy and great last month and a half!!