Late Friday Fishing On The Indian River

Since I wasn't able to get out to the river last weekend to do any fishing, I decided to hit the water early this weekend.

I didn't have to work hard to talk my wife and Elmo into a quick run around Peacocks Pocket road to see if anything was hitting.

The weather was beautiful but chilly.

The temperature was in the 50s but the wind was blowing hard enough to make it feel like the low 40s.

We entered the road at Catfish creek and after taking a few pictures of the wildlife, I put my Nikon CoolPix back into it's case.

It turned out to be a bad move.



On the next turn, Karen and I surprised a beautiful sea otter that was sitting just off the road. As I slowed to a stop, the otter quickly turned around and dove back into the water with barely a ripple before I could unpack my camera and take a picture.

Since it was about 4:30 we drove to a few of our regular spots to "jump fish" for trout and redfish.

We spent about 15 minutes at the first stop without any fish. I got a tap from a sea trout on my jerkbait, but it wasn't hooked well and got off.

Today I was fishing a green headed DOA jighead with a Terminator Snapback cyberflexxx jerkbait body in a mullet pattern.

Karen was fishing for redfish with shrimp and never got a bite.

We made several more stops on our route without getting any hits before deciding to call it quits.

As we were leaving the preserve, Karen wanted to try one more stop at the "duck blind".

This is an area where we normally catch both redfish and sea trout on a regular basis so we made this our last stop of the day.

About the time I resigned myself to being "skunked"; I pitched my jerkbait right on the bank and worked it off into a drop off.

The sea trout must have been watching the lure flip into the water because it inhaled the bait.

I unceremoniously landed the fish and had Karen take this picture. The trout was released unharmed to hopefully grow into a "gator".

We were both cold and hungry, so we packed up our rods and drove slowly out of the preserve.

As we got close to the canoe launch at Peacocks Pocket, we saw an old friend that I had almost forgot inhabited this area; a large bobcat.

It lumbered across the road and briefly cast a glance at the truck before disappearing into the brush.

Even though we didn't slay the fish this evening, we enjoyed the scenery and the presence of animal life that many people never get a chance to see in the wild.

Hopefully the fish will be biting tomorrow.

Tight Lines to your all.