Saturday Afternoon At Playalinda Beach

Saturday afternoon at Playalinda Beach didn't turn out as I hoped.

An anonymous angler commented on Dec. 29th. that lot #8 was pretty hot for bluefish, so I decided to give it a try.

I didn't get out until about 1:00 pm Saturday and the weather was great.  The surf was calm, the tide was coming in and there were no strong currents to speak of.

When I got to the beach, I first stopped at lots #6 and #7 to see what the water conditions were like..

There were only a few surf fishermen at both lots and after I spoke with them, found that they were catching only a few whiting.

When I got to lot #8, there weren't many cars in the lot so I loaded up my two surf rods with Okuma reels, some fresh dead shrimp, sand fleas, a couple of Luhr Jensen Krocodile Spoons - 5 8 oz - Chrome Silver Prism - Lures and took off to find a spot on the beach to fish.

 

 

I settled on a spot near the entrance of the beach where there were a lot of shells.  This is normally where you can find black drum, redfish, croaker, whiting, etc.

There was a slough about 25 feet from the beach before a long sandbar, that lead to a second drop off and another shallow bar where I thought there should be some fish.

I baited up with sand fleas on one rod and fresh dead shrimp on the other 60# rig and tossed both out past the farthermost breakers.

I waited about 20 minutes without getting even a nibble and being the impatient guy that I am, started walking around checking on what everybody else was catching..

There were surf rods lined up and down the beach and after talking to several fishermen quickly realized that nobody was catching fish.

One gentleman in the pic to the left caught a couple of whiting well before noon but other than that, no one was catching fish.



The guys next to me said they were catching some nice Pompano yesterday about this time of day at lot #10 on sand fleas.

When I asked them why they were fishing at #8 they told me that the nudists ran them off. 

Evidently work was being done at lots #11 and above where the nudists usually sport their goods but they gradually moved south.

I did see a couple of sea manatees swimming north, parallel to the beach.  Evidently the cold snap got their migrating instincts going.

At about 3:30 pm I finally had enough and packed up my gear.

On the way out on a whim, I decided to take Bio Lab Road to see if anyone was doing any better in the Mosquito Lagoon.

The water levels were dangerously low in the south end and the places I planned on fishing were now dry mud.

I took a few pictures of the area and decided to drive around Peacocks Pocket before heading home to see if I missed any fishing opportunities.

I talked to a couple of cast netters at Gator Creek who said they saw a bunch of redfish tailing in the marsh canal and that yesterday they saw several small schools of black drum in the same area.

The water was dead calm but I was already in the area, I decided to check it out.

I counted over a dozen alligators sunning on the bank and in the shallows but I didn't see any redfish or black drum anywhere in the marsh canal.

I flipped my gold spoon around a couple of spots and did get a couple of hits from sea trout before I decided to head to the hacienda.

I don't know if was because of the full moon or what but the fishing today was just that; fishing.

Anyway, as usual the sunset was awesome and the Pizza I got us for dinner was delicious.

Till next time, Tight Lines!