Evening Topwater Action

After working around the house today, I decided to hit the wildlife refuge for some evening topwater action.

I was targeting sea trout but as usual, I would take anything that bites.

Karen went horseback riding so I packed up the truck with four spinning rods and headed out to Peacocks Pocket road to see how many out of town visitors were in the area.

Today was beautiful and sunny with an air temperature in the high 70s. There was a mild breeze blowing over the Indian River that was not enough to cause problems casting and just enough to keep things cool.

Since today was more of a scouting trip than anything else, I cruised the road as slow as possible looking for signs of fish activity in the salt marsh and the river.

The water in the salt marsh was up and I saw sea trout and redfish in several of the small ponds busting baitfish on the edges.

The river didn't show sign of fish activity however as I drove around Peacocks Pocket road, I saw a couple of people wade fishing the shallows and a party in a flats boat fishing very close to shore on the Indian River side.

Since the water was colored from the rains, I started out blind casting a Johnson Sprite gold spoon to locate some fish.

My casting arm got tired before I had the first hit, but the fish rewarded me by dancing all over the place before I landed her.

It was a fat, roe laden 23" ladyfish that I considered cutting up and using for bait but instead quickly released.

The deeper marsh canal wasn't producing today and almost all the fish I spotted were in the shallow water ponds around the weeds.

I moved on to the next pond and wasted too much time trying to catch a huge sea trout that was attacking baitfish on the surface.

 The fish came out of the water a couple of times allowing me to identify that it was a sea trout and not a red. It was so big that it literally sloshed around when it hit a bait.

I tossed the gold spoon, a Chug Bug in two patterns, a Bomber Badonk-A-Donk , a Rapala "Skitter Walk" and finally a "Heddon Zara Spook Jr." that I caught several large sea trout on but the fish showed no interest in any of the baits.

I finally caught this sea trout on the gold Johnsons Sprite which I promptly released.

I left the house at around 5:00pm and around 7:30pm the evening topwater action started to pick up.

When the wind died down almost completely, the fish started busting baits around the reeds in the small ponds as they meandered to the deeper marsh canal.

I cast to a few fish as they got within casting range and missed three fish before this 23" sea trout clobbered a gold and black Chug Bug.

I was temped to keep the fish for dinner but decided to release it instead.

I caught a couple more sea trout in the same area on the same Chug Bug just before dusk before I decided to put up my rods and call it a day.

The mosquitoes and gnats were discovering that my body was a source of food for them and I didn't appreciate being on the menu.

When conditions permit, April is a great month for evening topwater action for gator sea trout and redfish in the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River.

Till next time, Tight Lines.