Another Windy Sunday On The River

When I left the house this afternoon, I didn't expect another windy Sunday on the river fishing but it was.

 My wife opted out of our usual Sunday afternoon fishing trip and decided to stay home, so I packed a few rods and headed towards the newly mowed Peacocks Pocket road to get in a couple hours of sea trout fishing.

When I crossed the causeway bridge and saw the water, I knew that the fishing today was going to be a challenge.

The air temperature, despite the breeze, was 90 degrees as I entered the wildlife refuge at around 4:30 pm.

I entered the refuge at the closest point and stopped to fish at one of the culverts where I had been catching ladyfish earlier in the month.

My second cast to the mangrove roots hooked me up with a beautifully colored sea trout.

The fish hit a white Berkley paddle tail swim bait as I hopped it off the bottom.

After landing the fish after a brief fight and taking it's picture, I released it to fight another day.  

I missed two more fish at this spot before moving down the road.

I missed another trout on a Fire Tiger paddle tail bait at my second spot and briefly hooked another sea trout before it flipped off the lure.

As I was moving to my next spot, I met up with the only other fishermen I saw in the refuge today.

Tyce was from Melbourne and his buddy Matt was visiting from Kentucky.

Although they were fishing in a spot where I sometimes catch redfish, today they just weren't having any luck.  

Tyce said they had been catching sea trout and reds here before on finger mullet and mud minnows, but today they only picked up a catfish.  

I wished them luck and moved on to another spot where I picked up a third sea trout on the white Berkly paddle tail bait.

As I landed the fish and was taking it's picture, Tyce and Matt pulled up so I asked him to take my picture with the fish so I could post it on the site.

Slightly out of focus, but passable.

They were surprised that I was catching fish on the marsh side of the road, so I turned them on the this website to help them out in the future.

They moved on and I continued fishing the marsh canal.

I switched to a Chug Bug and had a few follow ups but never got a solid hit so I switched back to the paddle tail baits.

I picked up another trout before moving on up the road to an area I knew had big redfish.

I passed Tyce and Matt at a spot I call "the duck blind" and hit my final spot before heading for home.

This area has several grassy islands in a pond area across from the marsh canal where the reds migrate in from the shallow pond to the deeper water near dusk.

There were no signs of fish in the area, so I began blind casting my Chug Bug to see if I could stir up any fish.

About the fifth or sixth cast, a gator sea trout that was well over 30" long blasted the Chug Bug and started running up the canal.   I didn't expect the strike and before I could get the slack out of the line, the fish sloshed about halfway out of the water trying to jump and got off.

Like clockwork, just as I lost the fish, my wife called me on my cell phone to see when I was coming home.  

I made several more casts into the same general area before deciding to call it an evening.

 I would have liked to have landed the big fish to post on this site, but that's why they call it FISHING and not CATCHING!

As I started to pack it in for the evening, a pickup truck passed by, apparently enjoying the sunset and the full moon over the Indian River.

Despite it being another windy Sunday on the river and losing the gator trout, I still managed to catch five decent sized sea trout in only a couple hours of fishing.

 Maybe next time,I'll get the redfish I was after.  

Tight Lines to you all!