Keith Lusher Jr As a father to three little girls, I am always trying to teach my daughters lessons in life that will prove valuable for them in the future. Some lessons carry more importance than others, but the smaller ones are lessons still the same. On a fishing trip to the Rice Fields Canal in Mandeville, I had the chance to teach the age old lesson of “all it takes is one cast.” My youngest daughter Maddie is what you might call a spoiled fisherman. Believe it or not, she has never been on a fishing trip where she hasn’t caught a fish. So it was no surprise to me to hear sobbing as I rounded the kids up to end a fishing. Already knowing the answer to my question, I bent down to ask her what was wrong? At that point she started hyperventilating and it took her a few tries to get out the words “I didn’t catch any fish.” My heart hurt for a split second then I seized the opportunity to teach her what I thought was going to be the lesson of “Sometimes you don’t catch and fish, that’s why it’s called fishing and not catching.” She tried to process the distorted riddle, but the sobbing continued. As I started to load up the truck I saw her standing there with her pole and thought to myself, “She’s given up, her lines not even in the water.” I walked over, bent down and asked “how many casts does it take to catch one fish?” She thought about it, then barely smiled through the tears and replied, “one.” She baited the hook with a shrimp then casted out.
Maddie Lusher continues her streak with this sheepshead caught at the Rice Fields canal. I turned around and made my way to the truck with the poles and ice chest, when I heard heard her cry “I got one!” Now, if you’ve ever been fishing with kids, you know that this is something you hear just about every minute. So I was less than enthusiastic when I glanced over my shoulder to witness her rod bent over and the tip pulled down into the water. I dropped everything and ran over to watch her battle the biggest fish she has ever had on her line. She reeled in the line and it would make a run, taking back all the progress she made. The five minutes it took her to get the fish in felt like an eternity to me as I knew the important lesson that would be learned with this one fish. Finally the fish surfaced. I reached down into the water and lifted up a 20” sheepshead to a chorus of cheers from the other kids. We snapped a picture and then I put the fish in the ice chest with the others. As I went to walk back to where the celebration had occurred, I noticed the pole and my daughter were gone. I looked around and then heard her voice coming from the truck - “C’mon Dada! Let’s go!” The spoiled fisherman's streak continues!
Mandeville Specks
Sebastian Elvir with his Lakefront speck This speckled trout run this fall has been fantastic for North Shore anglers. The high salinity levels are working further and further north and speckled trout are now being caught at the Lakefront in Mandeville. Renee Elvir of Mandeville has been a busy man recently but finally made some time to go fishing with all of the great reports he has been hearing. Renee says he had to make an afternoon trip because his fishing partner was still in school. “I finally got sometime to fish again and loaded the kayaks and waited for my fishing buddy to get home from school. When he drove up and saw the yaks loaded, he ran inside and put on some fishing clothes. He came back outside in less than a minute and off we went,” Renee says. The kayakers managed to catch a box of trout just west of the breakwater and along the Mandeville Harbor wall. Renee says he even saw someone wade fishing. “While we were out there I noticed a fellow fisherman wade fishing and he had a nice box of trout,” Elvir says. Renee and his son caught the fish on Lemon Head Matrix baits on a jig head.
Kayak Fishing Boondoggle
The kayak fishing event knows as Boondoggle was held this past weekend at Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville. Among some of the speakers was Robert Field. Field holds the title of the most viewed kayak fishing angler for his fishing videos that have millions of views on YouTube. The sport of kayak fishing has exploded and with the birth of affordable,high definition video known simply as GoPro, the two have come together enabling anglers to record there fishing trips with ease. Robert had a few tips for those who are interested in putting together a fishing video from their kayaks and stresses keeping the videos short. “Less is more. If you want to do these videos, less really is more. Leave your audience wanting more and they will subscribe to your channel and come back,” Field says. Robert gives an example of videos where he losses interest because of a drawn out opening scene. “I see a lot of videos where I’m excited to watch and the title’s really cool, but then the first 45 seconds is them paddling out to their spot - and they’ve lost me by then. 45 seconds doesn’t sound like a long time but if you think about it, it’s a long time to watch someone paddle,” Field says. Some more advice for kayak anglers that Robert stressed was to be yourself. “Be a person in your video. Talk to your audience - tell them what your doing and why you are doing it. Also tell them how you feel when you’ve caught the fish. You’ll definitely get more views if you act like yourself,” Field says.
