March Indian River Lagoon Redfish

Saturday afternoon on the Indian River Lagoon was just breathtaking. The weather was in the 70s and the fish were biting.

My wife and I decided to load up the truck and hit the marsh canals in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in hopes of getting a redfish or two.

I also took a ton of pictures of the wildlife that was out in droves.



The roseatte spoonbills, purple ibis, white pelicans, and numerous duck and heron species were all over the swamp shallows competing for food and squatting rights.

The gators were also out sunning themselves; and I counted over 20, in only a 6 mile stretch.

We started fishing by looking for active fish feeding in the shallows, and almost immediately rolled up on a large redfish busting the bank after some baitfish.

I pulled ahead of the fish, stopped the truck and started casting but the fish was not interested in my offering. A small Johnson gold spoon.

I continued with the spoon until I finally lost confidence, so I tied on a new "Mann's" soft bodied lure that resembles and swims like the original Heddon Soinc lures.

After a few casts to likely looking spots and several misses, I finally picked up a keeper trout that I released to fight another day. See pic.



My wife kept our wonder dog Elmo in the car, being somewhat paranoid of the gators getting their chops around him. Some we saw could devour a human with very little effort.

Karen was fishing a dead shrimp under a Cajun Thunder bobber setup, and was catching some pretty nice sized catfish. We moved several times and finally came to one of her favorite "hot spots" where we decided to fish until it was time to leave.

She hadn't caught a decent redfish in a while, so I left her to her spot and continued with my lures hoping to catch a larger trout or passing redfish.

After about 20 minutes I heard her yelling and knew she finally hooked up with a red, so I grabbed my camera and captured the results below for all to comment on.

The fish was over the slot limit so we returned it to grow even larger and catch it another day.

On the way out of the refuge, we decided to explore a road right at Peacock Pocket, that I've never seen open to traffic. The cable barrier was down, so we proceeded with caution and found the neatest wildlife drive ever. The only problem was that it went nowhere.

After venturing in over 5 miles, the scenic trail finally came to a dead end near the entrance to Gator Creek. The swamp trail was kind of eerie, and there was absolutely no one else around except for the birds, buzzards, and gators.

I turned the truck around and retraced our steps back to the "Pocket" with new knowledge under our belt.

Personally, I'm glad that the road is normally closed to traffic. There was no litter anywhere, like in the openly traveled sections, and the beauty of the swamp will remain pristine, at least for now.

Till next time.
Tight Lines!