Night Time Trout Fishing

Well it was a beautiful day in central Florida today. The wind was gusting to 20 mph and both the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoons were choppy.

I had intentions of taking out my Maverick and hitting the flats for some of those April gator sea trout everyone has been catching, but mowing the lawn, cutting down some dead trees and working around the house seemed like a better idea, according to my wife.

Not content to giving up a beautiful day without going fishing, I grabbed a spare rod I just respooled with 10 lb. Cajun Red Lightnin' line, put on a black and silver D.O.A. Terror Eye and scooted down to the bridge near dusk.

When I got to the causeway, it was sparsely populated with shrimpers and a few bridge fishermen.

The shrimping this past week was "so, so" according to Hank, one of the regulars. He said the shrimp were running sporadic and were "Oak Hill" sized. (Meaning mediums to small)

The week before, as I have already posted in this blog, they were "loading up on 9 to 12 inch shrimp" but this week the shrimping has not been consistent. Five gallon limits were were being scooped up, but "they weren't Titusville shrimp", as on gentleman told me.

Knowing that night time trout fishing is pretty much overlooked in this area, I decided to see if I could pick up a gator sow sea trout.

When it got dark I started pitching the D.O.A. outside the shrimp lights and caught and missed several small trout.



Moving out to deeper water just outside the shrimp lights, a good sub-gator sized trout grabbed the D.O.A. lure and tried her best to run under the bridge. After a couple of very nice runs, I finally landed the respectable 21 inch trout.

Fish for dinner tomorrow evening! I usually don't keep them but it's been a dry spell for nice sized keepers.

Last week end, my wife and I hit the preserve area of the northern Indian River and didn't do as well as we hoped.

I caught 13 or 14 small trout and missed a nice over sized redfish, and Karen missed one red and only caught several catfish. That is the main reason I almost exclusively use lures and not bait.

I took a few fish pics and am posting the collage here for your viewing.

Maybe the fishing will be better tomorrow. The weather should be great.

Tight lines to all!

North Indian River Lagoon Fishing Report

The North Indian River Lagoon area north of Mims, Fl., is definitely the place to catch a heavyweight redfish this time of year.

The unusually shallow water levels of this past fall and winter are slowly disappearing and giving way to freshly covered grass and mud flats.

The dried mudflat areas are now covered with water deep enough for the large bull redfish in the area, to charge into for an easy meal of crabs, mud minnows and anything else they can get their maws around. The most active feeding time seems to be in the late afternoon and evenings.

Although the reds in the Mosquito Lagoon are longer, and are more within the slot limits, the bruisers in the north Indian River Lagoon are bulkier and weigh well over 40 pounds.

The Scottsmoor landing area is producing bull redfish as well as the 5 to 10 pound redfish that are seen tailing in medium to large sized schools, and an occasional single.

The start of the spring mullet run has made the redfish aggressive towards top water lures. My favorites are a silver and black "chug bug" and black and gold "skitter walk" plugs. A D.O.A. jerk bait rigged weedless, without a keel sinker on the hook, is also an all time favorite of mine.

My wife usually uses dead shrimp or mullet and does quite well, especially later on in the season.

The lush grass flats between Titusville, Fl. and the north end of the Indian River are famous for sight fishing for the tailing redfish as well as the gator trout that stake out their ambush spots around the sandy potholes.

I have gotten reports of sow gator trout that were caught on top water lures that weighed in at over 13 pounds this past week. Ten pounders are routinely caught in these waters and I believe the world record was also caught in the Indian River Lagoon.

For those of you not in the know, these fish can exceed 30 inches in length. It's no wonder that the Indian River Lagoon is noted as an exceptional area for these early spring tackle busters.

All this talk makes me want to go fishing. It is late Sunday afternoon; So, I think I will!

Tight lines.

Indian River Flats Fishing

April is the month for gator sea trout in the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon estuaries.

This week in particular has been excellent fishing in the shallow grass flats north of Scottsmoor.

The Scottsmoor ramp is primarily for shallow draft boats, however if you take it easy and follow the markers out from the ramp, it can accommodate boats with a pretty deep draft. Use common sense and you shouldn't have any problems launching.

On Friday afternoon I spoke with some fishermen at the ramp who were gearing up for some wade fishing in the grass flats just north of the ramp.

The gentlemen I spoke with said they were catching bragging size trout by wading out to knee depth and staking one rod out with a live finger mullet. They were then casting top water skitter walk plugs with a second rod to pass the time between bites.

They also reported that they had been catching some huge redfish using the same technique during the middle of the week.





This particular area has been a local hot spot for years and is pretty much under fished.

Returning to Titusville on late Friday, the Max Brewer causeway bridge was loaded with over 50 people shrimping and fishing. The blood red full moon attracted quite a crowd of sport shrimpers. They reported dipping "jumbo" shrimp in large numbers for the past week.

I spent part of Easter Sunday out on the river driving around the Wildlife Refuge watching the finger mullet getting busted up by schools of large trout and a few redfish. I picked up a couple on artificial DOA Shrimp and Terror Eye lures but nothing to really brag about.

Enjoy the collage of pics I took at the Scottsmoor boat ramp.

Tight lines guys!

First Annual Fishin For Spot Tournament

The weather conditions for Titusville's first annual Fishin For Spot redfish tournament this weekend were excellent, and Saturday in particular, was a perfect day to get out and have some fun on the Indian River.

My wife and I checked out the area on Friday evening. We noticed that the parking spaces at the boat ramp in Parrish Park were quickly getting filled up.

This could have been attributed to either the Spot redfish tournament or the sport shrimping that was going on.

Friday evening had a greater than usual amount of shrimpers out on the bridge dipping up the tasty crustaceans. I am on the mend from foot surgery, so I didn't walk around and ask the sport shrimpers about their catches. From what I could see, they seemed to be doing quite well.

On Saturday, we drove around Merrit Island Wildlife Preserve from Peacock Pocket to where it finally comes out on SR 402.

The drive was unusually crowded with fishermen staking out their favorite spots on the river hoping to catch a winning redfish. The beautiful weather conditions, and the tournament, definitely
brought out the fishermen.

Here is a short movie presentation covering the weekend's festivities.

There was also a large gathering of people around the Max Brewer Causeway; jet skiing, fishing, picnicking, parasailing, and just enjoying the day.

My wife and I missed the weigh in but called to find out who won what.

Camille Moore was kind enough to provide us the results for the First Annual Fishin For Spot tournament held this weekend, April 4th, 2009.

The results are listed below:

1st Place - Casey Uyttewaal - New Smyrna Bch, Fl - 14 spots

2nd Place - Steve Hastings - Edgewater, Fl - 9 spots

3rd Place - Mark Latoree - Edgewater, FL - 8 spots

4th Place - Alan Holt - Cocoa, FL - 6 spots

5th Place - Mike Miller - Cocoa, FL 5 spots

Sr. Division Winner -- Steve Hastings - Edgewater, FL 9 spots

No ladies or jr's brought any fish in.

It is my understanding that although the fishing conditions were excellent, and the turnout was substantial, very few fish were brought to the weigh in.

If I could have known that in advance, I would have registered myself. The winner won a new boat!

Tight lines to all!