The Indian River Shrimp Are Finally Running

The Indian River shrimp are finally running!

I got bored watching the boob tube and decided to zip down to the Indian River to see if the shrimpers were having any better luck than they had been having for the past month or so.

It was about 8:00 when I parked my truck underneath the newly constructed bridge. I grabbed my fishing rod and my trusty Nikon camera and started taking pictures of the shrimpers doing their thing on the upper bridge and newly constructed lower fishing pier.

The night was beautiful. No clouds, a starry sky and a partial moon. The only noise was the hum of the generators that were providing juice for the underwater lights.

There were at least 20 shrimpers working the water columns on the bridge and on the new lower pier. Everyone was intent on catching large to jumbo shrimp above their generator powered shrimp lights.

I took the pics you see here along with a few movie clips of the action. There were hundreds of bait fish in the water column.

Pinfish, small flounder, needlefish, croaker, sea trout, and even a few goggle eyes were schooling around the lights along with the occasional shrimp.

I tried throwing a small jig around for a while, but I didn't want to invade the shrimpers territory too much. After catching a couple of medium sized croaker, I put up the rod and started questioning some of the guys about the shrimping.

Some guys were just setting up their home made shrimp light using a battery for power on the lower pier. The rig was a automobile headlight inside a foam life preserver. It looked like hell but it put out enough light to do the job.

Within a few minutes one of the guys netted a large shrimp using the makeshift rig and several more while I was still there.

The general consensus was that since Christmas, the shrimp were running much better.

Bob Smiley told me about a guy who braved the weather around Christmas day and loaded up his 5 gal. bucket with large to jumbo shrimp while everybody else was sitting in the comfort of their homes.

Bob also clued me in on some hot spots for black drum and jumbo redfish up around the geodetic dome north of Haulover Canal. I won't get into specifics but he said one of the spots was a lot like a fish hatchery. Karen and I have to give it a try next time we get out.

Here's Bob trying to snag some Indian River shrimp.



The shrimping around Oak Hill down south past Melbourne has been jumping from what everybody told me tonight.

I know for a fact that around Oak Hill in the Mosquito Lagoon ICW, you can load up a bucket of shrimp pretty quick when the tide is running. The only problem is that they are generally smaller than those found in the Indian River Lagoon.

There are a few "honey holes" in the Haulover Canal that produce nice size shrimp almost all year long. Right now, the canal is reportedly pretty "hot".

After taking a few more pics and short videos, I was getting chilled so I decided to call it a night before I got a case of pneumonia.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Till next time,
Tight Lines!