Thunderstorm Sea Trout Action

Late Saturday afternoon seemed to be a good time to take advantage of some thunderstorm sea trout fishing.

Thunderstorms in the late afternoon seem to be the norm lately, and today was no different.

After I finished up with the chores around the house, I asked Karen if she wanted to take Elmo and Odie fishing with me.

It was still raining off and on and she didn't feel like getting muddy so I packed up some spinning rods and headed off to the "swamp" for some late afternoon sea trout fishing.

I was originally planning to take my Maverick flats boat out to the Mosquito Lagoon and fish the shallow flats around Pelican Island and the Whale Tail area but it was too late in the day to fool around with hooking up the trailer.

It was around 7:00 pm when I finally left the house and the rain was just beginning to let up.  The air temperature dropped just below the 80 degree mark and there was virtually no wind over the Indian River.

I decided to fish the area where I picked up a nice 31" gator trout that didn't get away last weekend so I passed up several other areas where I spotted some activity and headed directly to the general spot.

The grass along side of Peacocks Pocket road is chest high which makes for some tough fishing.  

When you hook a fish, the odds of landing it go way down because of the brush and the damn horse flies are blood thirsty.

If you do manage to evade these bloodsuckers, you still have the gnats, "no seeums", and the mosquitoes to contend with.

For some reason they all seem to be impervious to mosquito repellant.

Anyway, all the negatives create some positives.  I was virtually the only fisherman in the area.

I started out fishing a Johnson weeldess silver spoon on an 8# medium action spinning rig and promptly hooked up with a couple of ladyfish and a small sea trout.

I decided to change over to a larger size Johnson Sprite gold spoon smeared up with some Pro-Cure.

Several blind casts into the glass like water rewarded me with a follow up from what looked like a slot size redfish.  The fish veered off at the last minute and never gave me a second chance.

It was getting darker and the surface activity started to ramp up so I decided to try a Silver and Lime Green Chug Bug.

I smeared on some Pro-Cure and started casting around some weedy islands and hooked a couple of beautifully colored slot size sea trout.

 
Both fish gave me a decent fight before I managed to land and release them.

As dusk neared and I was bringing in my Chug Bug, another huge gator sea trout blasted the lure just as it was chugging over a drop off.

The fish missed the first time it hit and got foul hooked in it's side a split second later as it swirled back onto  the bait.

As I was trying to find a spot to land the fish away from the heavy brush that lined the bank, the big sea trout straightened out the treble hook and got off. 

I knew the gator trout I caught last week wasn't the only big one in the area.

I lost several sea trout in this same general spot that looked to be the same size or larger, and today's hookup only substantiated my theory.

The fish come into the "swamp" area via open culverts, become somewhat land locked and with all the forage in the area,  they quickly grow to trophy size.

Anyway, I made several more blind casts just at dusk and missed another smaller fish that hit short before I decided I had enough of the bugs.

I took a couple of pics of the sunset and headed for home.

As I left the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge I had to stop briefly to let an 8 foot gator cross the road and again to watch a bobcat prance across the road as I was leaving Peacocks Pocket.

Hope to get out again tomorrow..

 Till then, Tight Lines.