A Day At The Beach

After having a terrible day fishing in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge yesterday, I opted for a day at the beach today.

My wife went horseback riding this afternoon so I packed up some rods and headed for Playalinda Beach to see if anyone was having any luck in the surf.

I wasn't expecting much because of the windy conditions but I decided to scout out the area anyway.


When drove up to the entrance to the beach, I asked the ranger if anyone was catching any fish today and as usual they were clueless.

It was high tide when I turned the corner to the first parking area and as I stated, there was a brisk wind whipping up the surf.

 

I stopped at parking lots #4, #8, #9 and #10 to see how the surf fishermen were making out and at every stop I found that nobody was catching any fish.

The heavy surf was pushing up literally tons of seaweed onto the beach and every surf fisherman I spoke with was pulling in more seaweed than fish.

The only fish I saw being caught were a couple of mediocre whiting

and a small pompano that flipped off due to the load of seaweed on the guy's line as he was trying to land the fish.

I took a few dozen pics and decided to see if anyone was doing any better at Eddy Creek.

When I pulled into the turnaround, there were several fishermen around the boat launch and more on the fishing pier. 

A few guys were pulling in fish but nothing spectacular so I decided to fish Peacocks Pocket road via Bio Lab road.

As I drove through Bio Lab road, I stopped at several likely looking areas to pitch a Red Ripper spoon around.  I had one hit but missed the fish, whatever it was.

There were a couple of hardy souls braving the wind fishing the Whale Tail but other than that the Mosquito Lagoon was relatively free of fishermen.

 

When I finally entered Peacocks Pocket road, it was getting late.  The air temperature was 73 degrees and the wind was still blowing from the northeast.

I fished several spots with a gold Red Ripper and a silver and black Chug Bug.

There was zero interest in the Chug Bug and I missed two reds in the grass.  The last red that I hooked took my gold Red Ripper.

As it neared dusk, I decided to call it a day early and head for home.

On the way out of the refuge, I spotted several bank fishermen dunking shrimp and finger mullet.

As I was driving past them, I saw a lone porpoise chasing redfish almost on the bank where the fishermen had their lines set.

I stopped and took this video of the action as the big porpoise was rounding up a redfish dinner.


Sorry about the quality but it was almost dark.

It has been a tough weekend for fishing.  Almost everyone I encountered was having difficulty catching fish but, that's why they call it fishing and not catching!

Till next time, Tight Lines.