Labor Day Weekend Fishing 2010

This Labor Day turned out to be pretty much a do nothing weekend for me and my wife.

Friday evening we decided to try out the Indian River Lagoon for some black drum or redfish.

I heard that the drum were hitting on cut bait in the area that we planned to fish, but since I didn't have any fresh dead mullet available, I just used large fresh dead shrimp instead.

As we drove into the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, we saw several telltale swirls that looked to be either redfish or trout, but they weren't interested in our baits.

There were a couple of redfish guides poling the shoreline looking for marauding redfish or trout however after awhile they moved off to greener pastures, leaving us bank fishermen the area to ourselves.

I stopped several times trying to entice the trout I saw chasing baitfish with my Donka Donk topwater, a Johnson's gold spoon, and finally my DOA CAL jerkbait. I had a couple of halfhearted hits but nothing of size to brag about.

We finally decided to just soak the dead shrimp in a spot where my wife usually catches redfish and drum.

There were thunderstorms rolling around the area and a light breeze was beginning to make the hot evening somewhat enjoyable despite the mosquitoes that were trying to carry us away.

All in all, it was good to just sit back, enjoy the scenery, and kick back.

Poor Elmo, our wonder dog was miserable and just jumped into the back of my truck trying to evade the hordes of bloodsucking mosquitoes that came with the rain.

After catching a few catfish and watching two large black drum swim by so close we could hear them "drumming" as they passed; I was ready to call it a night when something yanked my rod almost into the water.

At first I thought it was a drum but after setting the hook I knew it was just a large hard head catfish.

As I grabbed my pliers and shook the hook out of his mouth, the catfish fell sideways directly into the top of my ankle.

The spine penetrated almost to the bone and the immediate pain was incredible, but I managed to pull the catfish spine from my ankle and chuck it into the water to torture someone else another day.

I almost forgot how much pain those critters can generate when they penetrate your skin.

My ankle was bleeding profusely but Karen poured some peroxide over the puncture wound and put on a band aid.

Needless to say we called it a day as I hotfooted it out of the refuge in second gear.

Not much fish to brag about, but it was still an experience I won't forget for a long time!

Tight Lines, and remember not to shake catfish off the hook!