Gators Everywhere

This evening there were gators everywhere in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

When I say gators everywhere, I literally mean gators everywhere!

Late this afternoon I decided to give the refuge another shot and try to catch a redfish or two.

I picked up an off brand gold redfish spoon last week at the Bass Pro Shops store in Savannah, so I tied one on and started blind casting for reds.

This weekend there is a seafood and arts festival in town and most everyone seemed to be there.

As I crossed the bridge, the grounds were packed so I didn't anticipate much visitor traffic in the wildlife refuge.

The air temperature was a pleasant 72 degrees, there was no possibility of rain and there was almost no wind on the water.

The water in the marsh area was like glass which makes for some difficult fishing.  The fish spook easily when the water is too calm.

I drove slowly down Peacocks Pocket road blind casting at likely looking spots that I know held redfish this time of the year.

I was casting using my long graphite rod with a gold Johnson Sprite Spoon - 3/ 4 oz near a large 10 foot gator where I spotted a boil and promptly hooked up with what looked like an oversize redfish.

The fish turned on the spoon and headed for the bank towards the gator and all hell broke loose.



The gator turned on to the redfish, the spoon flipped out of the red and hooked onto the tail of the gator, and before I was even sure of what happened, I was hooked on to the tail of the gator.

It took a few seconds before I realized that I was firmly hooked on the the alligator but when I realized it, I tried to pull the spoon loose.

Bad move.  The gator felt the pressure and exploded all over the marsh canal.

I lost the redfish and the spoon to the gator so I moved up the canal a bit, tied on another spoon and continued fishing.

About this time a reader of this website drove up in his van and introduced himself as Mike Zeno.

I was surprised that someone remembered my name so we talked a bit about the fishing in the area.

As we were talking, a small school of redfish was making their way down the canal past the pissed off alligator.  I tried a few casts to them but they were not in their feeding mode.

Mike moved on and a few casts later I picked up a small sea trout which I promptly released.

As I moved on down the road I noticed some guys fishing the shallows of the Indian River in a small boat.  They were catching something but I couldn't make out what it was.



I lost the redfish spoon to a stick up and tied on a gold hammered spoon to see if it would get me better results.

It was getting late so I decided to try one last spot of mine before heading for home.

As I drove up to where I planned to fish, the spot was already occupied by another reader of this site.

Craig and his girlfriend Mary were already fishing the area.  As I was talking to my wife on my cell phone, Craig asked me if I wanted to see "something".

I hung up with Karen as Craig pulled out another gator; this time a gator sea trout.

Craig said that Mary caught the gator sea trout on a live shrimp under a popping float in the very same spot where he caught a nice redfish during the hunt for reds in October several weeks ago.

I took this series of pics to show that big fish do reside in areas where you would never expect them to frequent.

 

After I took the pics my wife reminded me that there was a ham in the oven I had to attend to so I packed it in for the evening.

On the way out of the refuge, I took these pics of the awesome sunset.

I can honestly say this evening that there were gators everywhere in the refuge 

Till next time, Tight Lines.