December Indian River Sea Trout

December Indian River sea trout are wary, hefty, and fun to catch.

My wife and I took our wonder dog Elmo to one of our usual fishing spots, in the hopes of catching a redfish or a sea trout.

Because I didn't get home from my job until late in the afternoon, we decided to head towards the closest productive fishing spot we could find, which happens to be the Indian River marsh area.

The temperature was in the low 50s and there was a moderate wind on the river when we got to where we wanted to fish. Because of the cold snap this past week, the water was cold and I assumed the fish would be somewhat lethargic.

We stopped at a couple of spots that normally produce, but today neither Karen or I had any hits.

We kept moving down the unimproved road and came upon a silver car, Mitsubishi I think, that had a bicycle on the rear bumper. It had apparently been driven off the road and was obviously in need of a wrecker.

We looked into the car to see if anybody needed help, but the car was empty; so we moved on to where I had caught some redfish last weekend.

Karen tossed out her usual shrimp and bobber rig to where I saw a fish swirl on some bait, and I started tossing my gold Johnson spoon with red tag that caught me fish last week.

Because of the cold water, I was fishing the gold spoon very, very slowly trying to keep it moving just off the bottom.

After several casts I hooked onto a fish that I initially thought was a redfish. It was heavy and sloshed around a bit before I saw that it was a very nice sea trout.

After a brief fight, I landed the trout and decided to take a few pictures before releasing it.

If the season would have been open, I would have had this one on the dinner table, but since November and December is closed season in Brevard County, I put the fish back to grow bigger for my next fish dinner.

I saw another fish swim by and told Karen to pitch her bait near it, but the fish apparently weren't taking shrimp today.

I walked up the river a bit to give Karen some room to fish and started blind casting the banks hoping to catch a redfish.

After about a dozen more casts at some likely looking spots, I hooked onto another very nice sea trout.

The fish was bigger than the first one and put up a respectable fight. I again took it's picture and put it back to grow into a gator trout.

It was getting dark and after about a dozen casts to both sides of the river, I decided to give it up for the afternoon.



Karen didn't even get a strike on her shrimp, which looked perfectly edible to me. (I'm a sushi fan!)

As we were packing up to leave, we saw a wrecker coming down the road to rescue the car that we passed on the way in to our fishing spot which had run off the road.

It pays to be careful and considerate when you drive these unimproved roads. In many areas there isn't enough room for two cars to easily pass by each other.

Whoever drove off the road this time apparently made it in one piece.

Hopefully, we will get to fish tomorrow earlier and get a shot at some redfish.

Till then; Tight Lines.