Saturday's Fishing Report

Saturday's fishing report for the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge could have been much better had I bothered to cast net some mud minnows or finger mullet.

I got home too late to go fishing Friday evening so I decided on hitting the refuge after working around the house on Saturday.

The air temperature was in the mid 80s when I finally got to East Gator Creek road and there was a slight breeze blowing across the marsh which made for almost perfect conditions for topwater fishing.

Chug Bugs and gold spoons were my choice for this afternoon's fishing but since it was 5:30 pm, I decided to concentrate on fishing Chug Bugs.

The first sections fished produced three ladyfish that eagerly hit my Chug Bug before either shaking off the lure or being released.  I continued moving up the road looking for an elusive redfish to pitch my lure to, but this afternoon I only spotted one red that was busting baitfish well out of casting range in a shallow pond.

As I hit Peacocks Pocket road, I spotted some sea trout activity but they had a case of lockjaw.  The bite today was very very slow.

I drove to a shallow pond that usually holds fish and switched to a that I smeared up with some Pro-Cure super gel and started blind casting around some grassy islands.

Normally, I favor a gold Johnson's Sprite but this time of the year in the marsh, there is too much sea grass to make fishing it feasible. 

 

I'd like to say that I killed the fish, but I had only one good strike and missed setting the hook.  That's one problem I have with a single hook weedless spoon of any type.  Unless you sharpen the hook to a needle point, you lose more fish than you hook.

I saw fish feeding on baitfish in several areas, but nothing was  hitting artificial baits this afternoon.  It would have been a good day to dunk a live finger mullet or croaker and watch the bird life in the refuge.

As the sun began to set, a fellow angler with Washington plates on his SUV stopped to give me his fishing report.

I forgot to get his name, but he told me he had a hit from something big on a topwater bait and missed the fish, whatever it was.

For a beautiful Saturday afternoon I was surprised that more fishermen weren't in the refuge.  Other than the guy I spoke with, there were no other people fishing the area and only three other cars passed while I was tossing lures.

The mosquitoes were not out this afternoon but the no-see-ums were murder and I forgot the bug spray.

When the bites became intolerable, I took a few pics of the sun going down over the Indian River and decided that Saturday's fishing report was over.  At least I didn't get skunked!

Hopefully, I'll be able to get on the water tomorrow.

Till next time, Tight Lines!