Night Shrimping On The Indian River

Night shrimping on the Indian River Lagoon has been picking up for the past couple of weeks, according to some of the regulars that I spoke with this evening.

Since I've been working in South Carolina for the past couple of weeks, I haven't been able to do much serious fishing.  The seven hour drive really wears you out.

I had planned to catch a few sea trout this afternoon but as luck would have it, the blower motor on our HVAC unit went out.

Today was windy for the most part and a healthy east wind was blowing smoke into the city of Titusville this evening, apparently from a controlled burn .

After I walked around the block to get some exercise, I decided to run down to the fishing pier to see what the shrimpers were doing.

The smoke around town looked more like an eerie fog and driving down to the river felt strange this evening.

When I got to the fishing pier it was apparent that the party goers didn't mind the smoke one bit.  A band was playing at the outside bar and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

I didn't bother bringing my fishing rod, only my Nikon Cool Pix.

There were lots of people on both fishing piers this evening.  The shrimpers on the higher pier were not doing as well as the ones who staked out the lower pier.

Because of the heavy east wind, not many people were fishing.  The guys that were fishing were using shrimp and were catching mostly catfish and a few small sea trout.

The shrimpers on the lower fishing pier closest to the sea wall were literally murdering the shrimp.

The east wind was pushing shrimp towards the sea wall and the shrimpers closest to the wall were dipping up shrimp almost constantly.

I took the video below of the action and as you can see the shrimpers were pretty active.

Night shrimping on the Indian River in May can be rewarding, and coming off a "super moon" might have something to do with the abundance of shrimp that were being caught tonight.

Although no one I spoke with had their 5 gallon bucket limit, several shrimpers were well on their way to filling their limit with jumbo size shrimp.

When I got to the pier at around 10:15 pm, there was a steady east wind blowing and it stayed that way until I left about 45 minutes later.

I ran out of memory on my camera and got tired of breathing smoke so I said my goodbyes and headed back to the hacienda.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get out tomorrow and catch some reds.

Tight Lines to you all.