December Marsh Redfish

Although we seldom talk about The December marsh redfish bite, it is just as awesome when conditions are right, as the great flats sight fishing in the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River Lagoon systems.

For flats boat owners, December is one of the best months to sight fish for redfish in both the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River Lagoons. Fortunately bank fishermen can also participate in sight fishing; only they have to do it from land.

The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge offers excellent bank and wade fishing opportunities to anglers all year long if you know how to do it.

Most drivers rush past some of the best fishing spots as they drive to their favorite fishing locations in the refuge.

If you learn to slow down to barely a crawl while driving and check out both the marsh and river sides of the road for wakes, swirls, bubbles, or other tell tale signs of redfish activity; you could surprise yourself with some decent catches of redfish.

Today, even though I'm suffering from an ear infection, I took my wife and "wonder dog" Elmo for a ride through the Refuge to see if we could spot some redfish.

We saw nothing until we approached an area we call the "duck blind".

The weather was beautiful and the water on the river side was slightly ripply. The marsh side was almost like glass.

Before we got close to the blind, I spotted some activity in the marsh canal and decided to stop the truck to make a few casts to the fish. I was in too much of a hurry and spooked the fish, so we continued until we saw more activity near the duck blind area.

After quietly parking the truck, my wife threw out a Cajun Thunder rig with a dead shrimp for bait on the river side of the road.

I started fishing a 1/2 oz. Johnson Sprite gold spoon, with an 8' piece of 20# fluorocarbon leader, tied to 30# yellow Power Pro line on one of my spinning rods.

After about five or six casts I hooked a "rat" redfish just off of a point in the marsh side of the road.



I took some pics of the fish and walked up the road a bit blind casting the spoon to the other side of the bank and working it back with a very slow flutter.

The trick here is to work the spoon slow and always keep the line tight as you flutter the spoon back to the bottom.

After several casts I hooked on to a really good sized redfish that made several runs up the marsh canal in both directions.

The bank was steep, so I called to Karen to get the Boca Grip from the truck so I could land the fish.

The fish kept running and got me tangled in the brush about 20 yards up the canal but I kept up the pressure until it unwound itself.

As the fish tired and I got it close to the bank, I saw that it was about 34 " or 35" long. There was no way to get the fish out of the water except to lay down on the bank and make a grab for it, which I did.

I lipped the big redfish while I was positioned upside down on the bank, holding myself from falling in with my left hand and swinging the fish with my right hand up to the road as best I could.

The gold spoon fell out of the fish's mouth just as I swung it up the bank. Meanwhile, I was yelling to Karen to hold on to the fish so I could take a picture of it and to not worry about me falling in.

She couldn't get a good grip on the fish and it slipped out of her hands past me back into the marsh canal. For a fleeting instant as I saw it sliding back into the water, I thought about grabbing for it, but common sense reigned.

I was still upside down on the bank bitching about losing the fish as Karen was trying to pull me back up the bank. At least I didn't get drenched. Anyway, even though I didn't get a picture of the fish, it makes for an interesting story.

I licked my wounds and continued fishing up from where I caught the big redfish and after several casts, I hooked on to another small "rat" redfish, which I quickly released.

After briefly hooking and missing two more redfish in the same area, the action stopped so I
decided to walk a few yards up the road to another spot where I saw some activity.

I spotted a wake coming down the far side of the canal and quickly cast upstream from the wake hoping to intersect the fish. The fish just continued past where I was fishing, so I shot another cast farther up the canal to where the fish was headed and started the "flutter" technique back to where I thought the fish should be.

When the spoon was about three feet away from the fish, the wake stopped and I got another solid hookup with a bigger fish. This one was about 29" long and put up a very respectable fight.

I carefully fought the fish, this time determined to land it and get some pictures.

After about 5 minutes and a couple of long runs, the fish was tired enough for me to lip it without any difficulty.

This time the bank wasn't so steep, so I reached down and lipped the fish. Here are the results.

Karen was fishing both sides of the road with her shrimp rig and although she got several bites, she never landed a fish. Very unusual for my wife.

Anyway, today was a great day for December marsh redfish.


I finished up the afternoon catching six redfish in only about three hours, all of them in the marsh.

As it started getting dark, I took some pics of the Indian River and the marsh area where we were doing most of our fishing.



Maybe if I feel decent tomorrow, I'll get my wife and Elmo to go out and try to duplicate my luck.

Till next time,
Tight Lines!