Gator Trout Are Still in the Indian River

The gator trout are still in the Indian River and the marsh areas of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge if you have the patience to go after them.

This afternoon my wife and I decided to go after whatever was hitting in the refuge but because of the weather, it was hot and humid, we opted for a late start.

Karen decided to fish with some fresh dead shrimp that I picked up the previous day and I brought along my usual array of rods tipped with various artificial baits.

Karen wanted to bank fish so she could just chill and enjoy the afternoon, so I dropped her off at one of her favorite spots, parked the truck off to the side of the unimproved road, grabbed a couple of spinning rods and took off down the road casting to likely looking spots.

The temperature was hot.  The car display showed it at 92 degrees but fortunately there was a decent breeze blowing which made it bearable.

Karen plunked down and pitched out one rod with a large shrimp under a float and a second rod with a shrimp on a bare 5/0 hook on a 20 # leader.

I grabbed one rod tipped with a Berkley Fire Tiger paddle tail bait and the other with a Johnson Sprite gold spoon.

Since the water didn't have much of a ripple on the surface, I started casting the paddle tail bait to areas I though held fish.

After many unfruitful casts I finally hooked up with a nice slot size sea trout which I released.

I kept casting to the opposite bank and to anything that resembled structure trying to get something to hit my bait.  I varied my retrieves until I finally got the speed the fish wanted.

The trick today was to fish  super super slow.

In a deeper area of the marsh canal I saw my line slowly move off and a second later a nice near gator size sea trout  started jumping all over the canal.

The fish was strong and put up a nice battle but the rod I was using had a light action and the drag was set light enough that I didn't pull the hook out of the sea trout's paper thin mouth.

I landed the fish and had Karen take the short video below of the fish.

Unfortunately, my Nikon is messed up and the still shots didn't come out so I got her to try the video.

 As you can see, it didn't come out like I hoped but you can still get an idea of how big the fish was.

The first fish in the clip measured in at just over 26".  The second fish that was flopping on the ground was a little over that, and the third one that I released was just over 20".

When I got back to where Karen was fishing, she said she had a nice redfish on but her drag was set too tight and the fish pulled  out as it was taking her float up the canal.

I don't doubt her because she caught a nice 33" redfish in the same spot a couple of years ago.

Before the sun headed over the horizon, I managed to pick up two more sea trout that I released to fight another day.

The grand total for today was five nice sea trout and an almost redfish for my wife.

As the sun was going down, we both decided to pack it in and head for the house.

It's nice to know that gator trout are still in the Indian River!

Until next time,

Tight Lines!