Friday Evening Culvert Fishing on the Indian River

Well folks; now is the time of year to get out on the water for some of the best shallow water fishing of the year.

Redfish have been coming into the shallows on the space coast and when I say shallow, I mean really shallow!

This evening, my wife and I caught and released seven slot reds in about a foot of water at an open culvert on the northern Indian River lagoon system.

The locals know that when the culverts are opened by the preserve managers, trout, snook and redfish are drawn to the area like bees to honey.

Bait fish, shrimp and small crabs are sucked through the big tubes and by some mystical fish-radar method the game fish manage to find them and quickly put them on the menu for din din.

Today we fished for about an hour with nothing but an occasional bump.
Some cast netters were intent on disturbing my serenity, and fishing, by rudely throwing their nets at nothing in particular and then suggesting that " the mullet are hard to spot".

No crap... I wasn't the least bit surprised that they went away without one lousy bait for their efforts. It's hard to catch any bait blind casting a cast net but it's really fruitless when there's a chop on the water and no baitfish are visible.

Anyway, I tried my favorite Creme swimbait in several colors to no avail. I then changed to a smaller size and picked up a couple of ladyfish and missed some small trout.

My wife was using a Cajun Thunder rig baited with large shrimp.

She picked up a catfish and then moved several times to avoid a large gator that seemed to like her green bobber just a bit too much.

At about 6:30 or so I decided on changing to a DOA jig head with a 4" black and gold body (the best color for redfish, in my humble opinion).

After two casts, I hooked up to a 19" red that inhaled the jig and put up quite a respectable battle.

The fish were feeding just outside the current of the open culvert and there were a lot more around.

I called my wife over to get in on the action and she immediately hooked up to another redfish of about the same size.

Over the next hour we continued to catch and release slot size reds right up until dark when the mosquitoes came out to feed on me.

Elmo, my dog and official fish inspector, and I decided to call it a day when I started losing too much AB Positive to the insects.

Finally, even my wife, a die hard fisher woman, agreed to call it a day.

The tally for the evening was seven redfish, one catfish and a couple ladyfish. Not bad for a couple hours on the water.

I highly recommend culvert fishing to anyone visiting the area and not knowing exactly where to go to catch some decent fish. If the water is flowing; the fish should be eating.

GOOD LUCK and tight lines to all.