Sea Trout Fishing Rocks!

Sea trout fishing rocks, even though today's fishing in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge was a bear.

As usual for a Friday I didn't get home from work until late in the afternoon. However that's when the fish bite in this area starts to turn on.

Today's sea trout fishing was really tough. The temperature was in the low 90s and the wind was steady and brisk.

The water on the Indian River side of Peacocks Pocket road was rough and the salt marsh wasn't much better.

My wife didn't want to fish with artificial lures so she baited up with a jumbo dead shrimp under a Billy Bay float.

I decided to try out a new "Baby Bass" pattern Chug Bug that I picket up at Bass Pro in Savannah.

My other favorite Chug Bug pattern (STORM Rattlin' Chug Bug - 3.25" - Metalic Silver Black - Branded Topwater) that I had been catching the majority of my sea trout on was eaten by a huge gator trout last week.

Since time was short this evening, I opted to fish the same areas where I had hooked into the big fish last week.

Karen picked a spot and lobbed her shrimp between two grassy islands while I walked down the dirt road looking for places out of the wind to cast into.

Fishing was tough.

The wind picked up the line and "skated" the top water plug on almost every cast,  making a good presentation almost impossible.

Despite the windy conditions, I still managed to hook and release a few sea trout that were in the slot.

I missed at least six fish in about an hour and a half, and landed three.

When I changed rods and tried a paddle tail bait, I never got a hit.

Meanwhile, Karen had a hit on her shrimp but the fish wasn't hooked well and got off.

After a while, we both got tired of battling the wind so we decided to move up the road to find a more sheltered area to fish.

The second spot was almost as windy as the first but it looked "fishy", so we stopped to give it a try.

I missed three small trout on the Chug Bug and when I changed over to a paddle tail bait, never got a hit.

Karen wasn't getting any action either so after about 20 minutes we moved to "bobcat bay" which was a bit more sheltered.

I continued pitching the Chug Bug but only had one anemic hit from a small sea tout.

Karen didn't get anything until just at dusk when her bobber disappeared and a short time later she was unhooking a catfish.

 At least she didn't get skunked!

A gator in the marsh canal was getting a little too interested in our fishing activities so we decided to head for home and call it a day.

Even though the mosquitoes weren't all that bad this evening, Elmo was grateful to leave the "swamp".

On the way out, I took these pics of the sunset you might enjoy.

 

Till next time, Tight Lines!