Dog Days Of August Are Here

The dog days of August are definitely here!

With the temps in the high to mid 90s and the water temperature on the mud flats almost as hot; the fishing has dwindled to the early pre dawn hours and late evening on both the Mosquito Lagoon & Indian River.

If you miss the early morning bite, you might as well pack it in and get a late morning breakfast.

The fishing for redfish and sea trout is exceptional this month, but you have to be a morning person or a night owl to enjoy the really good fishing.

Some of the largest "bull" redfish of the year are being caught as they congregate for their upcoming spawn, but the best times to get one is early and late.

Boat fishermen will generally fare much better than bank fishermen, but there are many places where boaters just don't have the access that bank and wade fishermen do.

My wife and I fished several north Indian River Lagoon areas on Friday and Saturday afternoon until dusk with varied results.

On Friday, I could have just stayed home. The only fish that bothered taking my lures was a lone redfish that hit a gold spoon in a ditch next to the river, a ladyfish that almost jumped onto the bank, and some very small trout.

I switched to shrimp and still could only round up some hard head catfish that acted like redfish, and a couple of small sting rays.

The roaming thundershowers that I thought would stir up the fishing both afternoons, only seemed to cool down the air temperature.

Saturday afternoon my wife managed to catch two small redfish on the marsh side of the river, several catfish and a large redfish that shook the hook as she tried to slide down the bank and land it.

I didn't get one hit on any of the lures I was throwing!

I did see several very large trout following the schools of mullet and occasionally killing one for dinner, but they weren't taking my top water Zara Spook Jr.

Close to dusk after the storms moved through, I saw a small school of "bull redfish" swim into the shallows from deeper water that were in the 30# range.

There were two redfish that looked to be close to 50" that came in just short of casting range, however I couldn't get a bait out to them without spooking the fish.

Two guys in an aluminium skiff about 40 yards from shore were doing much better. I heard them yelling as their boat was being pulled by a huge redfish out to deeper water.

The fish was probably part of the school I saw feeding in the shallow mud flats.

Anyway, as the storms moved on I pulled out my camera to take some pics of the beautiful blood red sunset.

Maybe tomorrow?

Tight Lines.