Rainy Shiloh Marsh Road Trip

This afternoon's rainy Shiloh Marsh Road trip was more of a scouting adventure than a fishing trip.

When I got home late this afternoon the weather was nothing short of miserable.

The wind was blowing, the temperature was about 64 degrees and dropping and it was raining or misty most of the time.

Despite the lousy weather my wife and I packed up a few rods, rounded up Elmo our wonder dog and headed towards the northern entrance to Shiloh Marsh road.

Last week when we scouted the area, the water levels were at an all time low. Areas where we normally caught redfish and sea trout were high and dry leaving only the deeper troughs.

Since it had been raining this past week, I wanted to know if the water levels had significantly increased across the mud flats.

As we entered the area the first thing I noted was that the water levels in the meandering creek on the Indian River side of the road had risen at least a couple of feet.

The first culvert that was almost high and dry last week, now had a nice current of water running through it into the marsh canal on the left side of the road.

It was raining a heavy mist but I just had to try a few casts to see if I could dredge up a trout or red.

I made several casts with a light green jig, a DOA jerkbait and a Chug Bug top water lure without getting even a tap.

As we moved on up the road we were happy to see several roseate spoonbills, various shore birds and a pair of sandhill cranes foraging in another area that last week was totally dry.

I took a few pics of the cranes and the video below, just because the sandhill cranes aren't usually roaming around this area.

Karen and I were looking for signs of fish in the newly flooded shallows, but didn't see anything until almost the other end of the road.

Karen spotted a nice redfish tailing about 30 feet out from the bank in shallow water, so I stopped the car and shot a couple of casts to the fish. It was a wasted effort on my part. The fish just wasn't interested.

Normally, I would have stayed around the spot and continued fishing; but because of the lousy weather, I made a mental footnote in my brain to come back tomorrow.

It started pouring like crazy, so we decided to head for home to dry out and watch a movie.

As we crossed over Haulover Canal, there was only one boat in the canal with two fishermen shooting casts to the bank. They were probably after sea trout.

Normally this time of the day, you would expect to find quite a few boats anchored throughout the canal and at either mouth fishing for big bull redfish and black drum that are found there.

Hopefully the weather tomorrow will be more conducive to "catching" than today's weather was.

Till then,

Tight Lines.

P.S. This is the first time I've been skunked in a very long time. I guess that's why it's called fishing!