Skunked On Reds

Skunked on reds was the verdict for this afternoon's fishing excursion into the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Because of the rainstorms earlier in the day, I has hoping for a stellar day fishing the marsh areas around Gator Creek Loop road.

The air temperature when I hit the refuge was 82 degrees and there was a moderate wind on the water.

Since I caught a nice redfish in the area around Gator Creek Loop road yesterday, I decided to begin fishing around the same area today.

On the way to the entrance of Gator Creek Loop road, I stopped by an open culvert and started blind casting the extremely shallow water with a Chug Bug hoping for a red or a sea trout.

On the second cast I landed a ladyfish that skyrocketed the bait into the air before getting itself hopelessly hooked on the dual trebles.

I normally would have stayed in the area to play with the fish but today I was targeting reds, so I moved on up the road.

I fished the shallow marsh canals and ponds hard and had only three followups from redfish.

 

I was surprised that no sea trout were hitting my top water baits, especially after a rainstorm but today the fish were extremely spooky.

There were only two other fishermen in the area all the time I was out there and they weren't doing anything with redfish.  The one guy I talked to said they had seen a few reds but the bit was really off for some reason.

I continued fishing until the sun started to set and the mosquitoes became intolerable.

Just before I decided to hit the truck, I picked up another ladyfish on the plug.

After I released it I resigned myself to the fact that I got SKUNKED on reds today.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day if the hurricane bands aren't too bad.

Till then,

Tight Lines.