St. Joseph Peninsula SP (Oct 23-29)

Wednesday - Joan picked out a great route here, which skirted Panama City. We got here safely after driving 123 miles. After getting set up, walking our loop, and having dinner, we went over to the beach so Joan could take pictures of the sunset and John could fish the surf. Both of us were successful, with Joan capturing a beautiful sky and John catching a quite large ladyfish and having a couple others break off. He finally upped his tippet from 10 to 20 pound to catch the one. We put up the canopy with screening because of Mosquitos and biting flies. 

Thursday - We took an early walk on the beach with a nice cool breeze blowing and gentle waves breaking onto the beach. At intervals, we could see large fish chasing bait onto the shoreline. They are amazingly fast. Later, after lunch, we launched our kayaks over on the bay side. Things started off slow, but picked up after awhile. We each caught a trout, which is a good sign, but they were too small to keep. Legal is 15 inches , but we like them to be at least 17. It was quite windy, but we managed fine. In the evening we went back over to the beach to watch the partial eclipse and sunset and so John could help a new friend, Ed with his fly casting. He has a new 8 wt rod and hasn't used it yet. He actually did quite well. While fishing John had a fish hit and take out line well into the backing. Sadly it got off. It was a gorgeous evening again. We are really liking it here. 

Friday - Again, we walked over to the beach, but this time brought the fly rods. Ed met us there and practiced some casting and received a few pointers. There was little action except for groups of stingrays chasing bait. Ed and Pricilla are leaving, but we are planning on getting together on the Crystal River. After our scrumptious chicken and rice dinner that John does in the Dutch oven, we launched the kayaks in the bay to fish. It got quite windy on us making fishing difficult. We caught fish, but not the reds or trout we were after. 

Saturday - Down day today. We took a walk on the beach, then John tied a dozen flies (streamers and Clousers) and both did some cleanup. It was calm and pleasant over on our side of the campground so we decided to try to fish the surf. We were disappointed to discover that there was about a 20 mph wind on the beach, so casting a flyrod was not going to happen. We walked and enjoyed the sunset instead. 

Sunday - We took a walk on the nature trail that runs along the bay for about a mile. The tide was out, so we could see what the bottom looked like. We saw many areas that should hold fish when the tide comes in. Our friends, Robert, Tammy, Tanner, & Trenton, that we met at Cottonhill COE, came over to visit. We got the boys out in the bay in the kayaks, which they seemed to really enjoy. We then did hotdogs over a campfire. They live nearby in Panama City. 

Monday - The surf calmed down enough this morning to fish, so we gave it a go. We could see large fish traveling slowly north, but they turned out to be mullet, which are vegetarian. Tom & Lisa who live close to us up north came by while we were fishing and bidded us so long. They are the couple that have the sailboat. John caught a whiting, that are not supposed to hit flys, but this one must not have read the book. They are small, and one would not have done us much good, so we let it go.  In the evening, we launched on the bay with the idea of fishing shallow with top water hoppers. This was foiled because of grass floating on the surface. We went deeper and John caught two ladyfish, two too small to keep trout, and two pinfish. Our new friends Terry and Louise caught a flounder and a keeper trout. They were using live bait. Joan saw a bald eagle and osprey having a dispute quite close to her. It was a beautiful evening.  

Tuesday - We hiked the beach this AM and were the only ones on it. Nice! We then drove about 5 miles outside the park and checked out a beach area that is adjacent to an area of heavy rip-rap. This is supposed to be a good fishing area. The wind there prevented us from trying. Across the road is a kayak launch that looked interesting. We will have to try it when the tide is higher. About 5 PM we put the yaks in again and headed to deeper water. It was quite windy, so we nearly decided not to. We both tangled with hefty ladyfish that put up great battles. John caught a 22" spotted sea trout, which was the first keeper, edible fish on this trip. We were using sparse streamers on #1 hooks. 

Wednesday - We did some walking around and decided to take it easy today. We met a neat family down by the launch who were getting their inflatable kayaks ready. We were very interested in their stories of their adventures. John cooked the trout on the grill in foil, which was delicious. We also got some things ready to leave tomorrow.