Suwannee River, 8/4/12

Saturday the wife and I took on the Suwannee River for the first time since living here in Lake City. Because of the tropical storm a few weeks back plus all the other rain we've been having, the river is still up quite a bit. As of Saturday it was at about 54 feet above sea level. We put in at the boat ramp on Hwy 41.

A view from the boat ramp down river.

The weather was great. We got there about 7:30 in the morning. A little ways up from the boat ramp were some shoals and some rapids, so we set out down river first.

Another river view from a little further down.

This is a beautiful river. Most of the river was several feet deep, the most shallow parts being only about 2 or 3 feet. It was moving pretty quickly as well. We went about 2 miles or so down from the boat ramp. We got to another spot that had shoals and what looked like some serious rapids, so we turned around there. We didn't want to have to try to navigate back up the rapids on the way back.

This river is mostly rock. There were a lot of interesting formations along the way for your viewing pleasure.

Another river view.

There were a couple of these small waterfalls too.

I was using my fly rod and Wife was using various rooster tails. We were just doing some relaxing bream fishing. We caught several, a couple of them about hand size, but most were smaller. Catching bream on the fly rod is a lot of fun though! I even caught 1 catfish with a fly. That was pretty exciting. They say there are a ton of catfish in this river, and I believe it too, if they're eating flies!

One of the bream we caught, after we released her.

All in all we were on the water about 4 and a half hours. It didn't take long to get down river, but the paddle back was a little more difficult against the swift current. It wasn't too bad though. We even stopped at one point on the way back and did a little swimming, because it had warmed up enough. Tthe water was a little chilly, but it felt good.

A very good, relaxing day on the water. We will definitely be going back, maybe trying a different spot on the river, or trying some catfishing with actual catfish bait instead of flies! Totally worth the trip!

Alligator Lake 7/7/12

We've been taking major advantage of all the water that tropical storm Debby dropped on the area a couple of weeks ago by hitting up Alligator Lake as often as possible. Unfortunately, the fishing hasn't been super great. Since there is so much water, the fish can go and hide in all kinds of places where they couldn't before so it makes it harder to find them. The day in question it was me and my son on the water. It was hot outside (in the 90's) and the water was really warm as well.

 

Here is what it loos like from the boat ramp. Notice the dock right on top of the water? Before it was several feet up.

This is a back area where we have never been able to get to before.

Another part of Alligator Lake we've never been to before.

 

 

 

Here is what the average fish we have been catching looks like. 

 The times we have gone since the storm, we only caught maybe 2 fish total between all the trips. I think both of them were caught this day. They were small, nothing "keeper" size. But a cool thing about all the water is we can get to places in Alligator Lake where we have never been able to get to before. You can actually go from one boat ramp to the other, where as before, the other boat ramp and area was completely dried up. There is a lot more to this lake than we've ever seen! All the water also makes it good for any regular boats with motors to be able to get in there in fish. It does make it more crowded than we are used to, but its so big that generally us kayakers aren't bothered by the bigger boats. We will hopefully be able to hit it up again soon!