Fishing The Marsh Canals

Fishing the marsh canals in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in December is one of my favorite pastimes.

Yesterday's outing was not much fun despite the fact that I picked up a nice 34" redfish. Fortunately, this afternoon's trip was much more pleasant.

I didn't start fishing until about 3:30 pm and the weather was great for this time of year. The temperature was 73 degrees and the wind was negligible.

Since time was not on my side, I made only one stop before going to the area where I caught my fish yesterday.

On the way into the refuge, I noticed some activity in the grass next to the bank so I pulled out my favorite Bagley gold spoon and started casting into the area.  I missed a fish on the third cast and after several more into the same area, I moved on to the spot below.



There were tons of noisy "mud hens" doing their thing (above) but no redfish were interested in my lure.

I saw a swirl on the river side that I thought was a red but my first cast into the area hooked me up with a slot size sea trout.

I released the fish and moved up the road.

A fellow fisherman stopped and asked me if I wanted some finger mullet but since I didn't have a container to keep them alive, I took only one small mullet from him and hooked it up for my next spot.

He said the only thing he was catching was "hard head" catfish.

As I sped up to the last area I planned to fish this evening, I flipped out the finger mullet on my Okuma bait runner outfit and propped up the rod on free spool.

I saw some reeds moving in the grass along the opposite shore so I pitched out a second rod with a frozen shrimp.

After a few minutes I hooked up with a nice redfish on the Okuma rig.  The fish took off down the marsh canal, promptly wound around the only tree limb in the damn canal and broke off.

I was snelling another 4/0 hook on the leader when the rod with the shrimp took off.

I was in too much of a hurry and pulled the circle hook from the fishes mouth.

Being totally pissed off at myself for missing two nice reds, I pitched out both rods with baited shrimp and started flipping a D.O.A.® C.A.L. Series Shad Tail - Lures to see if I could pick up a trout or two.

The third cast hooked me up with another nice redfish, below.








I had just spooled some new Cajun Line Cajun Advantage Monofilament - 10 lb. - Terminal tackle on this rod, so I decided to take a little extra care landing this fish. 

It made several strong runs up and down the marsh canal and finally gave up the fight.

Karen wasn't fishing with me today so I took these pics before releasing the fish.  It measured a clean 27" on my tape.  A perfect tournament red.

It was around 5:30 pm so I decided to head for home and call it another perfect trip.

Fishing the marsh canals in this area is a lot like fishing for rainbow trout in the streams of Pennsylvania where I grew up.  You have to sight fish them, stalk them and get a little bit lucky.

Till next time, Tight Lines!