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Post by floridahunt on Aug 13, 2023 0:53:39 GMT -5
Went down to the Big Cypress and rode around on a buggy. I was really disappointed that suckerfish were in the swamp. I was literally 5 miles from the main gate, the water averaged about a foot high in this area, (it was dry two months ago) and you could see sucker fish in the water.
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Post by joekat46 on Aug 13, 2023 4:40:50 GMT -5
Glad you weren't swallowed by a python.
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Post by TRTerror on Aug 13, 2023 9:00:51 GMT -5
I've had the ditches in front of my house dry out...Hundreds of Walking catfish laying in the mud..
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Post by wildman on Aug 13, 2023 10:19:44 GMT -5
South Florida is screwed when it comes to invasives. Basically too little done and too late...
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Post by bullfrog on Aug 13, 2023 20:04:03 GMT -5
Any South Florida peeps got any good oscar holes you know about? I’d like to come catch a few hundred…
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Post by bowhunter4life on Aug 14, 2023 3:11:00 GMT -5
Any South Florida peeps got any good oscar holes you know about? I’d like to come catch a few hundred… Put your boat in just west of us27 on I75 ( alligator alley)… at the first or second boat ramp past the toll plaza… throw your beetle spin along the lily pad edge and catch all the Oscar’s and Mayan cichlids you want. |
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Post by One Man Gang on Aug 14, 2023 7:14:06 GMT -5
Bowhunter is right.
Any of the canals off of 27, South of Belle Glade will give you all the action you want. I use a fly rod but as bowhunter also said, beetle spins will produce if you are not a fly fisherman.
Bring a jonboat,a ton of drinking water, and plenty sunscreen, and have at it.
I was out on the airboat Friday and saw a pile of BiG oscars around some of the camps in area 2.
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Post by JS84 on Aug 14, 2023 11:52:44 GMT -5
How are they for table fare?
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Post by bowhunter4life on Aug 14, 2023 15:45:46 GMT -5
How are they for table fare? Never tried them , but I hear they make a decent fish fry. I like to wait until just after thanksgiving through February or so to pursue my favorite panfish ( specks), on okeechobee. A high temperature of around the mid 70’s and very low humidity.👌….. if you go now, I’d be on the water fishing at the crack of dawn, and try and be done by 10am at the latest… it’s brutal out there! |
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Post by meateater on Aug 15, 2023 9:53:47 GMT -5
heres some facts for you guys, just like the python scam that wastes millions of dollars every year paying out to a select few that fit fwcs new woke hiring practices, mostly vegan internet wanna be actors who will never get them under control driving the levees all night, most of them are praying the pythons never disappear because then they will have to get a real job. they also pay a few select guys for invasive fish removal. how nice would it be to drift down the alley catching 200 oscars and ciclids for .50 or .75 a piece,, how bout going along 27 near sta 2 and gigging 300 suckerfish in a night at 1.00 a piece , nothing they are doing is making a difference so why not open it up to the public, try something different stop wasting our tax dollars and letting our public land and water go to waste.
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Post by meateater on Aug 15, 2023 10:00:15 GMT -5
How are they for table fare? they suck most gringos think there the same as hassa hassa are delicious but not suckerfish or armored catfish big difference. |
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Post by One Man Gang on Aug 15, 2023 10:15:42 GMT -5
Look up Pleco... they are disgusting. So are these shit eating tilapia. It takes a month to get the tilapia stench off your hands, out of your cooler, and out of your olfactory senses.
It's funny to watch the honkys try eating that crap thinking it's a armor catfish (pleco) or a farm raised tilapia filet (green tilapia).
Gig em and use em to fertilize your gardens. That is all they are good for.
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Post by ogbohica on Aug 15, 2023 10:18:51 GMT -5
Ill be restoking my pond if anyone wants a thousand or more tilapia
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Post by JS84 on Aug 15, 2023 10:24:02 GMT -5
I know pelcos are gross. I was asking about Oscars and Mayans really. I've only eaten specs as a kid, boyscouts.
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Post by cracker4112 on Aug 15, 2023 16:39:50 GMT -5
We throw the Mayan cichlids in with the rest of the panfish. They taste good to me. We don’t mess with any of the other invasives…
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Post by One Man Gang on Aug 15, 2023 18:23:37 GMT -5
We throw the Mayan cichlids in with the rest of the panfish. They taste good to me. We don’t mess with any of the other invasives… Agreed. |
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Post by bullfrog on Aug 15, 2023 23:17:26 GMT -5
Are what ya’ll are calling suckerfish the plecos or something else?
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Post by meateater on Aug 16, 2023 10:03:21 GMT -5
plecos or suckerfish are what most are talking bout, same fish but then you have armored catfish and hassa. all of them look similar.
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Post by meateater on Aug 16, 2023 10:12:07 GMT -5
We throw the Mayan cichlids in with the rest of the panfish. They taste good to me. We don’t mess with any of the other invasives… Agreed. folks who fish the glades with cane poles call them reds,,,claim there really good to eat ,, mayan cichlids im talking about. |
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Post by JS84 on Aug 16, 2023 10:12:38 GMT -5
Good to know. I actually thought Pelcos and Armored Cats were one in the same. Like Specks/Crappie
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Post by meateater on Aug 17, 2023 10:49:40 GMT -5
Good to know. I actually thought Pelcos and Armored Cats were one in the same. Like Specks/Crappie had to go to my trini expert who eats and sells the heck outa these things, pleco and armored catfish same thing both taste like mud,,,, but theres 2 types of plecos that look identical to the untrained eye. then theres hassa people also call them armored catfish and they are a sub species of the pleco and taste great. ive gone fishing with this guy throwing castnets and outa 200 armored catfish/ plecos i caught only 4 were hassa . had to ask him everytime is this one,is this one. they are a problem in south florida and will take over complete shorelines where bass and bream used to nest. |
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Post by bowhunter4life on Aug 17, 2023 13:12:23 GMT -5
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Post by bullfrog on Aug 17, 2023 14:50:13 GMT -5
I know plecos from the aquarium hobby. There are many species. I’ve seen two different species in the Ocklawaha; common plecos and an unknown second species. I saw one of the second species be as big as a channel cat in a feeder branch. About 2 feet long. I’ve seen common plecos on both sides of Rodman dam. That’s why I wonder about oscars. Oscars ought to be able to live where plecos do, and one range map I saw for oscars showed them in the St. John’s system and dipping back west across Marion and Levy counties to the Gulf.
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Post by tankered on Aug 18, 2023 8:38:24 GMT -5
Hassa?
I've seen tons of brown hoplos up here around Payne's prairie but never hears of hassa.
They claim those hoplos are great eating but they look, to me, too small to bother with.
Edit....looked it up, hassa and hoplos are one and the same.
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Post by meateater on Aug 18, 2023 8:46:05 GMT -5
heres my prediction on invasives, pythons and iguanas are on borrowed time, at least 80% of them. look up what happened in texas in 2021 to most of the exotics , south florida is waaayyy over due for a record freeze event . low thirties for 3 or 4 nights goodbye pythons and iguanas. plecos,ciclids,snakeheads,oscars and others including tons of snook will take a hit but dont think it will impact them as much as the reptiles.
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Post by bowhunter4life on Aug 18, 2023 9:52:09 GMT -5
heres my prediction on invasives, pythons and iguanas are on borrowed time, at least 80% of them. look up what happened in texas in 2021 to most of the exotics , south florida is waaayyy over due for a record freeze event . low thirties for 3 or 4 nights goodbye pythons and iguanas. plecos,ciclids,snakeheads,oscars and others including tons of snook will take a hit but dont think it will impact them as much as the reptiles. About 15 years ago it happened on okeechobee… I was filleting tilapia for days! |
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Post by One Man Gang on Aug 18, 2023 11:03:51 GMT -5
Three or four days days of freeze in FL will kill off a bunch of the exotics while leaving more hardy and cold tolerant survivors. I think they're here to stay and will slowly expand their range to some extent as they acclimate themselves to changes.
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Post by cracker4112 on Aug 18, 2023 11:50:20 GMT -5
Agreed. At this point cold weather won’t get them all. Especially the iguanas and pythons. Enough seem to be able to find places to shelter through the cold snaps.
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Post by bullfrog on Aug 18, 2023 15:34:09 GMT -5
Three or four days days of freeze in FL will kill off a bunch of the exotics while leaving more hardy and cold tolerant survivors. I think they're here to stay and will slowly expand their range to some extent as they acclimate themselves to changes. I agree. Natural selection will spare the few that can take the cold, and those will reproduce and create a more cold-tolerant strain of each species. |
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Post by johnnybandit on Aug 18, 2023 17:37:06 GMT -5
heres my prediction on invasives, pythons and iguanas are on borrowed time, at least 80% of them. look up what happened in texas in 2021 to most of the exotics , south florida is waaayyy over due for a record freeze event . low thirties for 3 or 4 nights goodbye pythons and iguanas. plecos,ciclids,snakeheads,oscars and others including tons of snook will take a hit but dont think it will impact them as much as the reptiles.
That has already happened... A few times.... Notably the cold snaps in January and February of 2010....
They estimated 50 percent mortality on iguanas.... I do not know whose estimate that was.. but it was what was reported....
Anyway.... Tons of iguanas, Burms, Tropical fish died.... Snook died..... Causes moratoriums on keeping snook....
But it did not eliminate them.....
Every time it gets cold enough to kill off some Burms and Iguanas.... It makes the problem worse.... Because some survive... And those that survive are either more naturally
cold tolerant or they have survival strategies for cold weather.... Either way..... They pass those genes on their offspring....
Each Severe Cold snap only serves to make the species in question more cold resistant....
In any case... Burms are not nearly as cold sensitive as folks think..... Their native range runs into Nepal and the foothills of the Himalayas
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