Fishing The Marsh Shallows During A Front

Fishing the marsh shallows during a front usually produces some mighty fine fishing and this afternoon was no exception.

The water levels in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge are up and the fish have become more aggressive in the shallows.

This evening I didn't get out to the refuge until about 5:30 pm.

The weather was overcast and the temperature was a pleasant 80 degrees. An east wind was blowing just enough to ripple the surface yet not enough to cause any problems casting.

It was a perfect evening for fishing.

Since it was late, I entered the refuge from the first entrance and made several stops before heading into Peacocks Pocket road.

Some culverts were open and flowing this evening, which is always a good sign. The fish tend to lay just off the current flow where they wait to ambush bait fish.

I brought along three rods this evening. One with a gold Johnson spoon, one with a Chug Bug and the last with a Tsunami paddle tail soft bait.

The first culvert turned out to be a bust but at the second culvert, using the Tsunami paddle tail bait, I landed a slot size sea trout on the second cast.

I released the fish and moved on in search of bigger game.

After making a couple more stops, I pulled off the road at a shallow pond where I hooked up with my first redfish of the evening.

The fish hit the paddletail bait in about a foot of water in the area below and made several nice runs.

The battle would have been perfect for a You Tube video, but since my wife opted to stay home and work in our pond, there was nobody to make a movie.

I tried to take a few pics of the battle with my Nikon Cool Pix 8700 but only got ripples.

It's hard filming a battle using only one hand, I've tried before!

 I finally landed the 28" redfish with the boca grip and took these pics before releasing the fish to fight another day.

   

I worked my way up Pocket road avoiding gators and casting to several likely looking spots where I hooked up with several slot and a couple of smaller sized sea trout.

After taking pictures of some of the trout, I released all the fish to fight another day.

Fishing the marsh shallows during a front can be exasperating but today the fish were hitting like they hadn't been eating in a week.

After two more stops. I hooked into another redfish of about 30".

The fish hit the same paddletail bait only a foot from the bank near a culvert in water that was only about a foot deep.

After the first long run, the fish made several short runs before it eventually got into the brush.

I managed to lead it out of the heavy brush, but after a few minutes it managed to get tangled in a tree that was only about ten feet away.

Since I didn't feel like wading into the Indian River muck to retrieve the fish, I just pulled until the line snapped and the fish swam away.

I didn't come well prepared this evening and didn't have another paddletail bait, so I switched to a gold Johnson Sprite Spoon - 3 4 oz .

The spoon attracted this sea trout which was almost as long as the spoon.

It was getting late and I was tired so I headed out of the refuge to the comfort of home and a nice shower.

Several other fishermen were out this evening but none of them reported catching anything.

Although fishing the marsh shallows during a front produces fish, you still have to know how to catch them and what baits produce.

This evening the best bait was the Tsunami soft bait, tomorrow who knows?

Till next time, Tight Lines.