Fish The Cold Fronts

Every time I fish the cold fronts I usually wind up catching some decent fish and this afternoon was no exception.

I didn't get a chance to go fishing Friday evening, so I decided to take advantage of the cold front that was forecast for our area this afternoon.

I couldn't coax my wife away from the stained glass project she was working on so I packed up four rods, my cast net and a few lures and took off for the river.

Because it was late in the afternoon, I headed for where I knew there would be fish.

The fishing conditions this afternoon were less than ideal. 

The air temperature was in the low 70s and the wind was blowing across the marsh so hard that there were whitecaps in many areas. Casting was a challenge to say the least!

The north Indian River east of Titusville, Fl. in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is a great fishery if you know how to fish the area.  I like to fish the "swamps" instead of the river where most everyone else goes.

Fishing the "swamp" is a lot like trout fishing in the limestone streams of northeast Pennsylvania where I was born and raised.   You have to "stalk" the fish.

Since you couldn't easily spot fish with the wind blowing like it was, I decided to "jump fish" and blind cast several areas where I had caught fish in the past several weeks.

The first area I stopped at was just before Catfish Creek Loop road in an area which is almost never fished.

This stop produced a small slot sized sea trout and about a three foot ladyfish that made 4 or 5 jumps before shaking off the spoon I was using.

At first, I thought I had a small tarpon on!

About the only lure that I could easily cast this afternoon was a Bagley gold diamond spoon with a beaten up red tag.

It's weight proved to be just the ticket for casting into the wind and still being able to work the bait effectively.  The short video below will give you an idea of just how strong the wind was blowing.

    

I continued to jump fish and blind cast several other areas where I picked up a couple of nice slot redfish and two more slot size sea trout.

Some of the pics below are slightly out of focus but you can get the gist.  Anyway, all the fish caught this afternoon were on the same Bagley gold spoon.



I tried using jerk baits, but they were impossible to control and today top water lures were definitely out of the question.

When you fish the cold fronts you can expect to catch fish, but you shouldn't expect to enjoy perfect fishing conditions.  The is evidenced by the fact that only two other fishermen were fishing the area this afternoon.

Several people were driving around apparently looking at the scenery, but the only two people I spoke with who were fishing, weren't catching.

I could have caught more fish but I was getting chilled and it was getting towards dusk.

I took these pics of the sunset and headed down towards the fishing pier to see if anybody was crazy enough to be shrimping this evening.

 

By the time I got down to the fishing pier, it was dark and the lights on the lower pier were not on for some reason.

I was surprised at how many people were fishing and setting up their shrimping gear. 

The water was pretty choppy to see any shrimp but when I asked a couple of guys about it, they said it would calm down later on in the evening.

When I inquired about recent catches, almost everyone I talked with said they were catching good numbers of medium to jumbo shrimp.

The guy next to the trash can in the picture to the left, said he caught 98 shrimp last night in the jumbo category.

Another guy said he dipped over 450 medium to large shrimp in the past couple of days off the pier.

Evidently, the shrimping season has begun!

When the weather gets nicer, I'll get an in depth shrimping report to post for all of you who are interested.

Till next time, fish the cold fronts if you want to catch fish and Tight Lines!