Catching A 33 Inch Redfish

After a lackluster start today, my wife ended up catching a 33 inch redfish in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Preserve on her favorite bait; a jumbo shrimp beneath a popping bobber.

As usual, we started fishing late and because of the amount of vehicle traffic in the area, we decided on taking the East Gator Creek road where we hoped there would be fewer vehicles.

Wishful thinking!

The beautiful day attracted tons of bird watchers and sight seers which made the fishing challenging, to say the least. It seemed like everyone was taking pics of the gators and rosette spoonbills.

Finger mullet pods were being chased by redfish or trout, but they acted spooked from all the vehicle traffic and weren't biting on any of our offerings.

We took pictures of the scenery like everyone else and decided to move on to another area that we like to fish.

Driving very slowly I only stopped when there were signs of fish and after only a short time, we stopped at a location where we had easy access to both the river and marsh canal.

I was pitching a D.O.A. jerkbait , a gold spoon, and a Bagly soft minnow bait that I picked up cheap at a Bass Pro Shop in Savannah, Ga.

I had a couple of taps but nothing of any consequence until a large fish roiled the water after some lively baitfish on the opposite bank.

Since my wife was getting off of a "dry spell", I told her to cast her shrimp rig to the opposite bank and pop it a few times.

I was going to fish the Indian River side of the road until I saw her bobber quickly go under and upstream.

Karen picked up the rod and held on while I got my trusty Nikon and fiddled with the settings trying to get a half decent video of the action.

It was obviously a good fish and it made several hard runs before Karen finally got it close enough to the bank for me to lip it with the Boca Grip.

I compiled this video of the action. Hope you enjoy it.


After putting a tape on the fish, it measured in at a good 33". Too big to keep, but great to video.

After she released the fish, we decided to stick around and see what else we could come up with in the area.

I gave up on artificial lures and switched to a free lined jumbo dead shrimp on a 5/0 hook.

I moved over to the Indian River side and after only about 5 minutes had on another redfish only much smaller.

The fish put up a lively fight and measured in at 24". Just big enough to eat for dinner.

Because my doctor suggested I go on the "South Beach" diet, I thought about keeping the fish but Karen talked me out of it so against my better judgement, I let it go.

It was getting late and we decided to hit "bobcat bay" where Karen picked up a redfish yesterday evening.

On the way we saw a pair of kayakers pitching baits to a school of redfish or drum.

When we got to "bobcat bay" the water was dead calm with very little action. I spotted three big redfish chasing baitfish along the bank, but they weren't biting on my baits.

Karen wasn't getting any action either and because we were both dead tired, we decided to call it a day.

On the way out, we saw a group of folks who were all out out about 30 yards fishing for whatever. They even pulled a chair out on the water. Talk about comfort!

Catching a 33 inch redfish made Karen's day as well as mine. Hopefully we can duplicate our success tomorrow.

Till then,
Tight Lines!