Me and the family spent 11 days in South West Florida over the Christmas holiday: Fishing for catfish, goliath grouper, sheepshead, snaper and even hunting Burmese pythons in the Everglades. This is our VLOG from the entire trip. We filmed all the fishing trips and python hunting and will be posting stand alone videos later of those trips: Including a python catch and cook video, a Sheepshead catch and cook video, a 100 catfish fishing challenge, a video about making a fishing pole out of palm leaves and goliath grouper fishing video.
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TravelTranscript
00:00Well, good morning everybody. It's another beautiful day. I'm going to go out and catch
00:25some catfish. We've just got kind of a relaxing day today. And it's a good thing too because
00:31tomorrow is going to be crazy. I accidentally double booked two charters in one day. I'm
00:36going fishing from like early morning until early afternoon. And then I'm going python
00:42hunting from early afternoon until like the next morning. So I'm going to be up for about
00:4824 hours fishing and hunting. And I think I'm going to be exhausted. So today is going
00:55to be low key. Look at this. They make runs. With a nice little bend in the rock. Alright,
01:25there's one. Yes. Come to daddy. Another mangrove snapper. My rod just went over my Japanese
01:39rod. That's a $200 rod and reel combo and I can see it. It's floating. I wanted to jump
01:45in but there's no ladder on this dock. If I jump in, I cannot get back up here. There
01:51is no ladder. There isn't a single dock on this whole side of the canal that has a ladder
01:59on it. I didn't loosen the drag enough. That is the first rod I've ever lost that way.
02:06That is the first rod I've ever lost from a fish stealing it. The warm embrace of your
02:21bosoms is the only thing I can do. I love you. Well, the fishing's picked up but I find
02:30that I've been emotionally devastated by losing my rod. And it's helped me refocus on what's
02:35important in my life. So, I'm going to go swimming with the kids. Okay, here I come.
03:05Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on.
03:35You know, it's really good to see the boys learning how to swim without their life vests.
03:50You know, I try to be so careful with them always in their life vests when we go fishing. But you
03:55know, eventually they're going to fall in. It's going to happen one day. They're going to really
03:59fall in and it's nice to know that they can swim. A little redundancy isn't a bad thing. Well, I'm
04:04glad I took a little break and took the opportunity to mourn the loss of my fishing rod and play with
04:09my children. But I'm going to see if we can't pick up a few more here and see what we can find, okay?
04:19Look what just happened. I just broke about six inches off the tip of my $125 Nash Scope.
04:29What happened is I was trying to pull some line out to work with as I tied it
04:33and this line got caught, okay? The drag's off, so it should have just pulled out. But because
04:40the line was wrapped around there, when I pulled it, it got stuck and it snapped the tip off.
04:47So I have now lost one imported Japanese rod and reel combo and I've now broken
04:55my British telescopic fishing rod. Oh.
05:03Yeah, hey babe, where you at? We're on Sanibel Island. Okay, when you get back, I'm going to
05:08need another hug. Oh no, what happened? Oh, keep your rod up. Keep your rod up, bud.
05:14He's, he's, hold on. I gotta, I gotta land a fish, babe. Love you. Don't let go of the
05:20rod. It's the only one I got left. No. I'm glad you guys are hanging out with me while I fish.
05:28It's fun. Here, hold your apple. Go work. Oh yeah, he got him. He got him.
05:42There we go. Well, it's the end of another wonderful day and what better way to end
05:46than with barbecue. Yes. So, uh, we're gonna eat up and then I'm getting to bed early because
05:53tomorrow I have got a long day that includes fishing for sheephead and wrestling pythons
05:59at night in the swamp. So, all right, see you guys in the morning. Good morning, everybody.
06:066 30 in the morning and me and Tommy are the only ones up. I was getting up, making myself some
06:11breakfast, getting ready to sneak out to go do a sheephead fishing charter and Tommy, uh,
06:19hey dad, can I come with you? Yeah. I said, you know what? Come on, let's go.
06:27It's gonna be crazy. Yeah, I was like to try to catch them. All right, me and Tommy,
06:33we're getting ready to meet John. We're gonna go out again, but this time we're gonna be
06:36aiming for some sheep's head. We're gonna try to do a little catch and cook video here.
06:41Excited, buddy. All right, take a seat, bud. It's a beautiful day, John. Awesome, baby.
06:49You excited to go catch a sheep's head? If we're real lucky, we might catch the whole sheep.
06:59He's come here.
07:10Look, some manatees. They just went underwater, but there's some manatees right there.
07:14Trying to keep the line still, but tight. Okay. And if you feel like a little tap, tap, tap, tap
07:20on your rod, you let me know. Real, real, real, real, real, real, real,
07:26real. Oh, there you go, bud. Real hard. Pick up, pick up. He's got a good one. There it is.
07:38Yeah, good job. All right, hold him over here. Here, watch, step backwards.
07:45Oh, look at that. I want to see his teeth. All right, all right, good job. You did it,
07:53you got him out of the tree. Good, look at that. That's a pretty fish. Look at that,
07:59right in the corner of the mouth. Great job, buddy. Say, hi. That looks just like yours.
08:08See, look at the bottom ones. They're perfectly straight. And that's how they eat the oysters,
08:16and they spit the clams out. They got crushers in their mouth. See, if you look in there,
08:20you see him. It kind of looks like Freddy. It kind of looks like Freddy.
08:23Oh, look at that. It kind of looks like Freddy. This hand is stuck in there. I can't barely
08:29move it, see? Here, help me. Here, just bend the hook.
08:37Oh, nice. Oh, big snapper. Yeah, look at that. Yeah, I think he might even be a keeper. He is
08:43a keeper. So this is a mangrove snapper or a gray snapper, and this is a pretty decent size one. The
08:49minimum limit is 10 inches. He's a big old boy, but check out the teeth on these guys. He has
08:57pointy fangs. Tommy, there's a dolphin. Right over there, see right there? There's a dolphin.
09:04See him right there? Oh, look, there's one right here. He just went right under the boat.
09:13Probably the same two we saw the other day. Those dolphins are fast. They just went ripping right
09:17past us, but it's only like three feet of water, so you can see them really well.
09:21Yeah, look at this little piece of meat. That's really, really nice right there. Oh, that looks
09:25like a crappie, man. All right, man. I had a ball. Thanks so much, man. Yeah, I appreciate it.
09:32This is lovely, man. This is December. I can't believe it. Yeah, I know. It's good stuff.
09:37All right, man. You take care. Appreciate it. I got to go wrestle a snake, man. I'll get him.
09:40All right, Tommy, you ready to go see mama? Hi. Hi, baby. You look pretty awesome. Thanks
09:48for sending the photos. Hi, Jacob. Hi, buddy. Now I'm heading off to the Everglades. I'm going to
09:54be meeting a guy by the name of Mike out to go hunt Burmese pythons all night long. To say I'm
10:01excited is a gross understatement. We better get going, though. I have two and a half hours to
10:06drive. Well, guys, I haven't eaten lunch, and I'm going to need dinner, second dinner, midnight
10:12snack, probably an early breakfast, then actual breakfast. So I ordered eight double cheese
10:18burgers. Well, apparently pythons will only eat things they can swallow whole. So the bigger you
10:27are, the safer you are. So safety first. No pythons getting me. Driving through the Everglades right
10:35now, and it is just awesome. Oh, there's so many places I want to stop and fish and explore. I could
10:43spend months here. This is amazing. All right, guys, I met up with Mike. We're going to go get
10:53ourselves some pythons. I am beyond stoked. We're going to make it happen for sure. We're going to
10:58the secret no trespassing, going to go to jail location. Trespassing is a felony? Geez.
11:08Remember, kids, never go to a second location with somebody you met online,
11:11unless they're a python hunter. That's okay. Now, what these are, these are Burmese pythons. These
11:18are people's pets that some yohos let loose into the swamp, thinking they were giving their pets
11:24a better life. And now these things have established a breeding population here in
11:29southwest Florida, in the Everglades and all over this place, and it's just causing havoc.
11:35But the government has commissioned certain bounty hunters, so to speak, about 25 hunters
11:41that are allowed to go on government property and hunt for these things, and they get paid a bounty.
11:45So these professional snake hunters, like Mike, are going around trying their best to try to put
11:51a check on these Burmese pythons. Now, when we see one, is it the kind of thing where we just
11:59bail out of this car and run as fast as we can? No, not at all. You know, we don't want to scare
12:04the snake. We want to kind of make it seem like we don't even see it. It's real camouflage. They
12:11like to wait and see what you're going to do. So we'll just park. We'll just slowly walk up on it,
12:16and as soon as you get your hands on it, it is go time. It's gonna freak out. It's gonna freak out.
12:23We're just scanning, scanning, scanning for a big fat six foot plus snake. This is pretty awesome
12:30being out here at night getting to see a part of the Everglades that people normally don't get to
12:34see. And it's just, I'm on pins and needles, you know. It's the wintertime. We may not see any
12:40pythons, or we might see a bunch. We just don't know.
12:49Now, if I saw one in the water over there, would that just be like,
12:52sorry, out of luck, don't even try it, you know?
12:54All right, go ahead and grab its tail now. Grab its tail and hold on. Do not let go.
13:15Nice job. Now, the snake's kind of cooled down. This is good.
13:24It's gonna make it a little bit easier. Slowly work your way up towards its head.
13:31Kind of wait for a chance to get it when it's kind of stopped and calmed down.
13:40Beautiful. Like a pro. Nicely done. Very nice. Yeah, buddy.
13:48What? Nicely done, brother. That was awesome. It's almost 4 a.m. It's been a long day,
13:55and it's been an awesome day, man. Thank you very much, Mike. Thanks for coming out. I had a great
13:59time, definitely. That was awesome. Yeah. You've got to follow Mike on Instagram. He's got an
14:05amazing Instagram page on there, so I'm going to put a link in the description. As far as the catch
14:11and cook part of this video, what happens with these snakes is he's got to take them to a
14:16biologist between Monday through Friday at certain times, and it's Saturday morning right now, and I'm
14:23going to be leaving Florida before Monday. So what he's going to do is he's going to go ahead, take
14:29it to the biologist. They're going to return the meat back to him. He's going to ship it to me in
14:33Virginia, and then we're going to do the second half of this video where we cook up some pythons.
14:38It's going to be good. It's going to be interesting. Stay tuned. All right. Thanks, man. Yeah, thank you.
14:43I've got a two and a half hour drive back to Cape Coral, and I think I need to load up on some soda
14:49and maybe pick up a souvenir for the boys too. All right. I got Tommy and Nathan some alligator
14:55paw key chains. They'll think that's pretty cool. So what's my secret to staying so alert and focused
15:02while driving? Bollywood music. I made it, and I'm tired.
15:21I love you. Happy birthday, Jacob. Come here. I got some souvenirs for you.
15:36It's an alligator hand key chain. I am so freaked out.
15:44It is Jacob's birthday. He turned one years old today.
15:48Mama. Well, we got the whole crew in here, and we are going to go do some lunch.
15:56Oh, you're smiling too. Yeah, Jake.
16:03Over there? Hey, you want to come with me? Yeah, there's Sheep's Head down there.
16:07Well, today is our second to last full day in Florida, and it's Jacob's birthday,
16:22and this poor little guy is not feeling well. He is sick. He's got a little fever, a little cold,
16:29and I'm just going to cuddle him. Not really going to do much of any fishing,
16:36and I'm just going to hang out with him. I think that's what he needs today. Plus,
16:41I am exhausted, but the boys are having a ball in the swimming pool with Grandpa,
16:47and tonight we're going to eat some delicious fresh seafood,
16:53and I think that's going to be just enough for today.
16:56This is looking pretty good.
17:21There we go, guys. The ultimate Florida dinner plate.
17:23Sheep's Head, scallops, stone crab, fresh caught shrimp, a little bit of mango. Not too bad.
17:53Well, it is the end of a very long Saturday, and I am absolutely exhausted. Hopefully,
18:02Jacob will be feeling a little bit better tomorrow, and I'm just going to do a few
18:07things here on the computer and download some SD cards, and I'm going to bed. See you guys in the
18:14morning. Well, hey, everyone, and welcome to our last full day here in Florida. Jacob's doing a
18:19little bit better. His fever seems to have broken, and he stopped blowing chunks on everyone and
18:23everything. He threw up a lot last night, but he's doing well, and today we're just kind of
18:30packing up and getting everything ready to go because we're checking out early tomorrow to head
18:35back to Virginia. Well, church went pretty well. We got ourselves fairly packed, so now we're going
18:41to hop in the car, do a little Sunday drive, and hide some of those treasure boxes we promised
18:45we'd leave for you guys. All right. All right, guys, this is one of my best treasure boxes here,
18:55and I think we're going to find a really great spot to hide this. Show that back as far as you can.
19:04In you go. Well, guys, it's been a great trip, and we've had a load of fun, but it's time to go home,
19:10and we're driving back to Virginia, about 15 hours, give or take, depending on traffic,
19:14and we're going to hide a couple more of those treasure boxes on our way back,
19:18and don't forget we're going to put in the description the GPS coordinates and little
19:21hints so you guys can find them, so definitely check that out, but I better get the car packed.
19:26Guys, that was no fun. Did you guys have a good time? Yeah. Yeah. All right, now we've got 14 hours
19:34and 40 minutes back to Virginia, so without stops. So let's get to it. I'm out here looking for a
19:41place to hide a treasure box. Unfortunately, this place has an alligator.
19:53All right, three boxes down, two to go. Just watch out for alligators.
19:59So,
20:10well, guys, we made it home, and we hope you enjoyed this video. If you'd like to see more
20:14great travel adventures from the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel, don't forget to click subscribe
20:19and check out the playlist in our description for more great videos like this. Have a great day.
20:25Thanks for watching. We hope you enjoyed this video. If you want to see part one of the Florida
20:29adventure, click the link below. Also, if you want to see more great videos from the Outdoor
20:33Boys YouTube channel, don't forget to click subscribe. We put out new videos every Saturday
20:37morning, and don't forget to check out the Catfish and Carp YouTube channel,
20:40where we post all of our fishing videos. Thanks for watching.