I got home Tuesday, 08/25/09, after a LONG 5 weeks on the road touring with the Yard Dogs. I've been taking it easy catching up with stuff around the house since then and don't plan any salt water kayak fishing until next week.
Friday I cleaned my little outdoor aquarium that I use as a "guest fish hotel" for small freshwater fish that I collect out in the canal out back. After refilling the aquarium with canal water, I went out to the canal with the pool skimmer and a slice of bread to catch some small gambusia to use in cycling the tank. When I chummed the water with bread crumbs to attract the gambusia, I noticed a REALLY BIG sunfish looking fish popping floating breadcrumbs on the surface. I grabbed a spinning rod with a 1/0 hook and popping cork attached, baited up with a corner of a slice of bread and tossed it out maybe 10 feet from the dock edge. Big sunfish immediately started popping the bread crust, then POW! This slab of fish came up from below, inhaled the bread and took off diving deep! The circle hook did it's job snagging the fish in the upper lip. The fish fought like the dickens too! Imagine my surprise when i pulled in the line to discover a two pound, ten ounce blue tilapia on the hook!
I continued to fish off the dock with bread crusts and caught a number of hand sized sunfish, but no more tilapia.
I put a small sunfish on a spinning rod and snagged a gar which bit the baitfish in half and escaped.
Afternoon thunderstorms finally drove me indoors. It was fun. Catching a tilapia was a totally new species for me!
