Fishing The Indian River During A Thunderstorm

Fishing the Indian River during a thunderstorm this afternoon proved to be extremely productive.

The conditions were less than ideal but I decided to take Elmo to the wildlife refuge with me on a little fishing outing.

This afternoon the air temperature was in the 70s and the weather was balmy to say the least.  A brisk wind was blowing over the water making casting a bit difficult.

I decided to fish an area where I saw some redfish activity last weekend.  My wife and I call it "bobcat bay" for reasons known only to us.

Anyway, I stopped at a culvert on the way into the refuge and netted up a half dozen finger mullet, just in case.

I started fishing using a gold Bagley spoon that has been "good" to me lately.  A gold spoon is one of my standby lures and one I favor for locating fish in murky water.

I had several taps from small trout before moving on to where I planned to spend some serious time fishing.

When I got to my "spot"  there were several fish moving around an open culvert chasing finger mullet and small ladyfish.

I spotted a huge wake moving down the marsh canal and made a picture perfect cast directly in the fishes path.

Almost immediately, the fish nailed my spoon but some how managed not to get hooked.

I decided to bait up with a finger mullet on a casting rod I use for big fish.  It's an old Garcia Ambassadeur 6000 C rigged with 60# Moss Green PowerPro® Braided Spectra® Fiber Micro Filament Line, about 8 feet of 30# fluorocarbon leader and a 5/0 Owner circle hook.

I waited several minutes so everything would calm down in the area before casting the mullet to the opposite bank.

It took no more than a minute before a wake aimed for the mullet and exploded under the bait.

This time the fish was hooked solid and took off like a freight train down the canal.  The drag on my reel was cranked down but the fish just kept running.  It was at least 50 yards up the canal before I managed to slow it down and muscle it back towards the culvert where I was standing.

As it swam by, I could see that the redfish was huge.  It was at least three feet long.

It passed by at full speed and went down the canal in the other direction pushing a huge wake.  I fought the fish for at least another five minutes until I finally got it to within a few feet of the bank.

As I scrambled down through the brush to land the fish, it got it's second wind and took off again.  This time it would around a stickup and broke off at the hook.

I could not believe the fish got off with the extra heavy tackle I was using but that's why they call it fishing.

I replaced the fluorocarbon leader with a fresh piece and snelled on another 5/0 hook.

I spent a few minutes fishing the Indian River side blind casting the spoon trying to locate some fish but mostly waiting for the commotion to die down in the marsh canal.

When I saw mullet being chased again in the shallows, I baited up with another mullet and pitched it to a likely looking spot near a weed lined island.

It took about a millisecond before a nice sea trout blasted the mullet and headed down the canal.

This time I didn't muscle the fish.  I played it carefully until it was out of steam.

The fish measured in at a hair over 24 inches and was headed for the dinner table.

All during the time I was fishing, it was raining off and on.  The wind was getting stronger and the thunder was getting closer, so I decided to head for home and clean my fish for dinner.

Fishing the Indian River during a thunderstorm is usually productive and this particular area is almost always great fishing right before and during a thunderstorm.

I won't hope for one but if a storm is around tomorrow afternoon, I'll be on the Indian River fishing.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.