Better FeedsFor those of you subscribing to the fishing report feeds using RSS (and I see there are quite a few of you) just a note that I have upgraded the code to pull in the formatting and pictures users are providing. This should make for a better RSS experience overall. I know as a user of that feature myself it is greatly appreciated to see the beautiful catches along with the reports!
 | Last edited by Terry on 09/22/07 | |
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CFLFR STAFF TAKES A FISHIN ADVENTURE WITH CAPTAIN TIM MILLS ON THE DHATLDOITA few month's ago, I decided to start planning a fishin' mission to the south west coast of Florida. Stories and video of the Tarpon rolling in Bocca Grande Pass, as well as the renowned Redfish and Snook in the mangroves around Lemon Bay have been calling to me for years.
I immediately emailed Capt. Tim Mills to find out if he would be available for Memorial Day weekend. We planned on fishing all day on Saturday, Reds and Snook in the morning and then play the Tarpon herd dance in the afternoon. Having not fished that area of Florida too much, I was ready to go weeks in advance. So Friday after work, Mike, Terry, Aren and I (Justin) headed out for a couple hour drive south.
In the morning we met Capt. Tim at the dock, 6:45 am sharp. In minutes, the Dhat-l-doit was underway. The weather was beautiful enough to forget about slight wind and chop in the harbor. After a short ride, the Capt. pulled into a nice quiet channel and set anchor. Another guy in a small aluminum jon boat, trolled by trying to coax a snook onto his hook. He had the grouper face of a man that has been doing too much fishing and not enough catching.
As soon as he trolled past, Capt Tim had the gear ready and cast into what turned out to be a honey pot of Snook. Aren had a fish on within a couple seconds of hitting the water. I reeled in 2 nice ones and so did Mike. After that spectacular start we hit up some other sweet spots around the flats, landing good fish at each.
With the sun climbing higher in the late morning, Capt. Tim took us out in the bay to see what the trout were up to. Setting anchor at the right spot just off a sandbar, got us on the bite for some keepers for a couple hours. I nabbed 2 nice long ones and it seemed like one of us constantly had a fish on at all times. When the wind started to pick up, we headed back into the mangrove channels for a check on yet another honey pot of snook, reds, jacks and even a nice grouper reeled in by Aren, although not quite a keeper, he sure was pretty.
By now the time was right to head over the Bocca Grande Pass for some Tarpon craziness. On the way, Capt. Tim explained how we would setup and fish for these glorious monsters. He would set the boat ahead of the school and they would swim right under us, while we set our lines directly under the boat. He would maintain position to keep our lines vertical and let us know when to reel our lines, fast to move the boat, faster than you have ever reeled for a fish on! I was amazed at the 50 to 60 boats, all jostling to stay out of everyone else's way and stay with the fish at the same time. The giant Tarpons were surfacing all around the boats, which in itself is a site to see, grabbing some air and then diving back to the bottom in search of food. During the 3 or so hours we were out there, we only saw 2 or 3 anglers hooked up, they just weren't biting like they should have been. We had a couple of nibbles and false alarms on the rocky bottom and the good Capt. was on top of everything the whole time, like he's done this a million times. Although we didn't hook up, in a way we were kinda glad, the idea of fighting a lunker for over an hour was tiring in itself after already being on the water for over 8 hours. The experience was awesome and I can't wait until next year and try again.
On the way back to the dock, we hit yet another spot for good measure. It was late in the day, we and the fish were exhausted, so after a good 20 minutes of the one more cast game, we headed in.
Back at the dock, Capt. Tim filleted our catch while we searched for the car keys, forgotten in the water safe under the console. We had an awesome day on the water and thanks to Capt. Tim Mills, we did not just fish, we caught. |
The CFLFR Fishing Calendar has been updated with the 2007 schedules for many local fishing tournaments, professional and amateur.
Dates for the Lake Rosalie Bait And Tackle Speck Tournament Trail, Bass Champions Senior Tour, HT3 Outdoors American Bass Series, Fishing Misfits, Winter Haven Lunker Lovers, Lakeland Hawg Hunters, Tampa Pro Bass Trail, Xtreme Bass Trail, West Coast Couples Bass Club, Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League - Gator Division, Accent Marine Tournament Trail, Polk County Bass & Snook Club are now current thru 2007. If you know about a new tourney date, Contribute it to the CFLFR Fishing Calendar and Tournament listings. If you see an error, or would like a change made to your tournament listing, let us know. CFLFR Tournament Listings |
CFLFR Launch PartyFriday night at Fish on Fire was our official launch party for the site and we'd like to thank everyone who came out to meet one another and us, talk fishing, have some great food and drink a few cold beers. We especially want to thank owner Jay Harrington and the staff at Fish on Fire for having our rowdy bunch and setting us up with our own section on the patio. If you're looking for authentic Florida seafood, head on over, I'm partial to the cracker style grouper sandwich with jerk seasoning myself.
Both Captain Pat Murphy, the first captain to register on the site, and Captain Don Smith, who registered just that day, were on hand. Several other site members came out including Jason, Aren, Emily, Rachel, and Chris as well as a lot of other family and friends. As thanks for helping us grow this fishing community we had a few giveaways, including some appetizers and CFLFR goodies like fishing towels and stickers.
I think it's safe to say we are definitely going to be doing this again, so if you have some comments and questions head on over to the message board and talk about it. I posted some pictures over here if you want to take a look.
| | Last edited by Terry on 10/14/06 | |
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Better Profile AddressesYou may have noticed that the links to all your profiles throughout the site have changed from a pretty cryptic and ugly looking thing to nice clean simple ones that are basically just http://www.centralfloridafishingreport.com/you. You can also always use our abbreviated address (ie: cflfr.com/terry) which makes a nice short little address to share your profile with friends or to put on a business card. Just make sure you put your exact username that you use to login, capitalization doesn't matter, but you will need to include any spaces or other characters that are there. Enjoy!
| | Last edited by Terry on 09/02/06 | |
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|  09/22/07: Better Feeds
06/06/07: CFLFR STAFF TAKES A FISHIN ADVENTURE WITH CAPTAIN TIM MILLS ON THE DHATLDOIT 12/29/06: 2007 Fishing Tournament Dates Posted 10/14/06: CFLFR Launch Party 09/02/06: Better Profile Addresses 08/17/06: New Custom Shirt Design From CFLFR 08/09/06: Fishing Gear Store Open For Business! 07/02/06: Live Tide Data Added To CFLFR 06/02/06: CFLFR Official Apparel Now Available 05/20/06: Off We Go! |
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