By: Capt. Rob Modys
I have personally witnessed and experienced the reluctance to try something different, especially in the realm of fishing. I still like to visit known spots and use familiar lures and flies until recently, when I had the sudden realization that what I was casting wasn’t going to work, no matter how hard I tried.
If you’ve been fishing the backcountry waters of Florida Bay you might have run into quite a bit of floating grass. No, this is not the nearshore sargassum that has been getting a lot of attention. I’m referring to turtle, manatee and other grasses that when attached to the bottom are essential to the health of the ecosystem.
But when those grasses come loose during storms and high winds, they tend to float for days on the surface of the water. This makes tossing my favorite lures very tough.
I found that not only were topwater lures out of the question, but so were most of the soft plastic paddle tail lures I like to use. Yes, I could let them sink after the cast and then slowly retrieve them, but the grass was insistent on riding down my fishing line, and it would eventually wrap itself around the offering.
Having to pull the grass free after every cast got old fast, not to mention the fact that I wasn’t getting any bites. It was time for a change.
So, I’m sitting on the boat doing the math and had a flashback to virtually the same problem I’d had years ago while fishing Pine Island Sound near Sanibel Island.
The bottom of the upper Sound was covered in thick turtle grass that often wound up floating on the surface after summer storms. My solution back then was to tie on a popping cork rig.
The ones I used were the more modern versions where the cork rode freely up and down on a tungsten wire with ball weights and rattles attached. You tied the fishing line to the top and added a leader to the bottom along with an artificial shrimp. It was also possible to tie on a hook with a small split shot for weight and a live shrimp.
Honestly, I don’t carry a lot of lures on the boat, but this flashback got me to digging through what I did have, and low and behold I found a popping cork and something that was a handout from a recent fishing show or seminar. It was an artificial plastic shrimp made by Savage Gear and called the Manic Shrimp.
It worked! It looked incredibly life-like and was almost the exact color of a Gulf pink shrimp. I caught big mangrove snapper and lots of seatrout and ladyfish, so thanks to a change in plans the dilemma of the floating grass had been solved.
I’ve decided to add more variations of artificial shrimp to my tackle bag. An old favorite was the original D.O.A. shrimp along with Gulp! shrimp. Yes, New Penny was the color of choice. I’ve also picked up some Vudu Shrimp and the Z-Man PrawnstarZ.
Change is good.