November in the Panhandle

One the things that is that you can count on in November is bears. They come around because of the acorns that are prevalent in the fall. The sow  in the photo above has two cubs and has been hanging around for a couple of weeks. Her cubs were frolicking across the street last week.

They are very entertaining to watch and aren't a problem unless they get into you garbage are destroy your bird feeder.

Our weather is great this time of the year and so is the fishing! Trout and reds are fattening up on the shrimp migrating to the gulf.

 

I took an interesting picture (to me anyway) the other day.

 

Nothing exceptional you say...just a handsome young man man holding a nice red, until you look at the reflection in his sun glasses.

You can see what Mike is seeing, while I'm taking his picture.

While I was out on the dock, my neighbor came out to net some mullet for supper. The evening sun added a nice cast of color.

 Then there's Jessie. He lives in the creek that borders our property. He certainly enjoys the sunny afternoons after our chilly fall nights.

I'm very fortunate to live in such a rich, natural environment, and for all of you that we don't have a change of season............We do!!!!!!!!!!

October in Apalachicola

We've already had nights in the high 40-low 50 degree range. These changes trigger the movements of birds and fish, such as the increase in the number of wood storks in the last couple of weeks. I see very few during the summer, but now we are seeing them daily.

 

Our local herons and egrets are also more active, due to all the pogies and shrimp that are moving with the cooling waters.

The tarpon are also following the schools of pogies . It's not uncommon to see large schools of tarpon crashing into the migrating pogies.

The cooler weather also brings the southbound butterflies. The gulf fritillaries are coming through by the 1,000's and will soon be joined by large flights monarchs.

 If you've never visited the Panhandle in the fall, you're missing a wonderful experience. Fishing, photography or just sight seeing, now is the time.

Whiskey George Sentinel

I knew it was a good sign , when we headed into Whiskey George and there was an eagle watching the confluence with Cash's Creek. The morning was overcast and a pleasant temperature. Typical fall weather in Apalachicola. There were birds working schools of shrimp, being pushed to the top by trout. We stopped and caught a dozen short fish before we headed up the creek.

We picked up 8-10 more small trout on top water plugs, but not the quality of fish I was after. I was basically scouting for trips this week and I wanted some bigger fish.

Our clouds went away and so did our top water bite. The tide had turned and better trout started blasting LYs all around us. We switched over to sub surface MirrorLures and started catching better trout.

I'd accomplished my goal to locate some fish in an area that i hadn't fished in a couple of weeks and we had caught 20+ trout in the 2 hours that we'd been out...now it was lunch time and time to watch a ball game.

Signs of Fall

 The first flight of white pelicans showed up in East Bay this morning. A sure sign that cooler weather isn't far away. As you can tell from the picture they were too far away for decent pictures  with my current lens. By the time I decided to put the boat in the water for some closer shots and ran around towards Whiskey George, they had departed.

The good thing about white pelicans is their arrival coincides with Mirrolure time. This is when the larger trout start loading up on protein for the fall and winter. I didn't hit any of the big sows this morning, but I did find some nice sized males 18-19" that were looking for a snack. We've got some rain forecast later on this week so we may get some top water action, if we have an overcast day or two.

Eagles are everywhere you look in the bay. This immature eagle didn't seem to understand why I was releasing trout.

They don't get their white tails and heads, along with their yellow beaks, until their fifth year. This guy looked like he was starting to get some white on his head.

Autumn in Apalachicola

This is a busy time of the year, here on Apalachicola Bay. As summer heat begins to give way a lot of things start happening at once. The first being the annual white shrimp migration. The shrimp that have been growing in the bay's and river's brackish waters start moving to the open gulf to spawn. During this journey trout, reds and tarpon have a hey day and so do we! There is no limit on white trout, so it's a great time for fish fries. Limiting on speckled trout is also very doable.

Fish and shrimp aren't the only creatures on the move. Now also the beginning of the butterfly migration with thousands of  Gulf Fritillary

and everyone's favorite the Monarch

and one of my favorites the Common Buckeye

 

Many of our migrating birds are passing through now. I've seen a number of colorful warblers that don't year around here along the ever entertaining humming birds, not to speak of all the eagles that are starting their nests. There were 5 overhead at one time last week.

Cool nights, warm days and all kinds of critters...Autumn in Apalach is a fun time!

Apalachicola Bay in the spring

Old Man Winter is slow to let go of us this year, but we are beginning to get some warm days with light winds. Now if we can get the flow of fresh water to stay below flood stage for a few weeks maybe we can get serious about fishing.

 

As you can see, we still have some white pelican hanging around the Dry Bar. They should be heading north any day now, but with the weather our northern neighbors have been having...well I might hang around a little longer too.

Trout fishing is beginning to pick up, but water temps and muddy conditions are making it a little tougher than normal. I'm finding some cleaner water toward the west end of the bay and the trout are cooperating.

They are feeding on mullet now, so we've been fishing larger profile baits like the MirrorLure Catch 5. DOA shrimp are also producing around the oyster bars, but the Catch 5 are producing larger fish.

If our weather holds for a couple more weeks things should be back to normal.