New Years Eve Fishig Catfish Creek

New Years eve fishing Catfish Creek wasn't totally a bust this afternoon, but the fishing could have been better.

My wife and I decided to take Odie and Elmo fishing just to get out of the house.

We loaded everybody up along with a few rods and some frozen shrimp and headed for Catfish Creek loop road where I caught a few redfish this past week.

We tried fishing the first spot but there were too many people in the area, so we moved down the road to fish the Indian River side, even though Karen spotted and spooked a nice redfish at our first stop.


I baited up a couple of casting rods with medium sized frozen shrimp and another two rods with chunked frozen ladyfish that I caught last month.

The weather was beautiful this afternoon and for the most part there wasn't much visitor traffic in the refuge. 

The air temperature was in the low 70s and for a change there was barely a hint of a breeze blowing.

We got a late start this afternoon and after fishing about only a half hour at our second stop I missed a fish on one of the cut baits.  It could have been either a redfish or a cat.  I'll never know.

As usual I got bored and started using Karen's Cajun Thunder/dead shrimp rig to pass the time.

I fished it like you should with a DOA shrimp or CAL jerkbait and after the third cast missed a fish that I thought was a sea trout.

After baiting up with another fresh frozen shrimp I started "popping" the rig back to shore.

It took another couple of casts before I hooked up with this "puppy" red.

At first I thought it was a big sea trout but quickly realized it was a juvenile redfish.

It was hooked deep and was bleeding a bit so I cut the line above the hook and released the fish.

I'm sorry to report that it was the only fish for the afternoon.

Karen never got a bite on any of her baits and I suffered the same result.

As the sun started to set, I took a few pics of the awesome sunset before we packed up our gear and headed home.

 

The dogs enjoyed getting out and so did Karen and I. 

Spending New Years eve fishing Catfish Creek sure beats the hell out of sitting in front of the boob tube all afternoon, even if we didn't "knock em dead".

Hopefully next year we'll do better.

Till then,

Tight Lines and a Happy New Year to your all.