Another Beautiful Day At Playalinda Beach

It was another beautiful day at Playalinda Beach this afternoon.

I had planned on going shad fishing on the St. Johns river this afternoon but at the last minute I decided to hit Playalinda Beach instead.

A friend of mine said the blues were sporadic but that there were some nice black drum and pompano hitting, so I opted for the surf.

Except for the wind the weather was great.

When I drove up to the check in booth and asked the ranger about the fishing, he told me that the pompano were hitting sand fleas and shrimp.  He also confirmed that there were some nice black drum being caught in the surf at the first few parking lots.

I thanked him for the information and decided to hit lot #4 where the surfers hang out.

There are some deep troughs located in that area and as long as it wasn't overly crowded, it should be a good place to start.

As I started to unload my surf rods, a surf fisherman and his family were leaving.  I asked him how the fish were biting and he said the current was bad and he hadn't caught any fish.

He decided to head for the river instead and try for some redfish.

I thanked him and proceeded up the walkway to the beach.

As I got to the top of the walkway, I noticed that there were no fishermen on the beach.  Only surfers and a couple of groups of sunbathers.

The surf was rough.  Perfect for surfing but not so great for surf fishing.  Anyway, I decided to try for some pompano.

I was using some fresh dead shrimp that I picked up at the local bait shop along with some frozen finger mullet I had in the freezer at home.

I baited up one rod with a chunk of finger mullet and heaved the rig out with a 4 oz. weight to hold bottom.

I baited the other rod with a couple of small shrimp, peeled for good measure and cast that rig out past the second set of breakers. 

After I finally got the drag on the Okuma bait runner set up to the right tension, it took only a few minutes before I had the first fish on, an undersize juvenile black drum which I promptly tossed back in.

The tide was full and I expected to catch a bunch more fish, but that wasn't what happened.

I picked up a couple of small bluefish that kept for dinner and then the bite suddenly stopped.

I fished for another 45 minutes without another hit and as a family with three kids set up right next to where I was fishing, I decided to move up the road.

I packed up and headed for lot #8 where I had some luck last week.

There were three other surf fishermen at this spot but they didn't seem to be having much luck.

The one serious fisherman caught a few bluefish on live finger mullet as I was setting up and the other two guys seemed to be just out for a good time.

I fished this spot for about an hour and only picked up a small catfish and another blue for my efforts.

The blues were hitting live finger mullet but they didn't seem interested in shrimp this afternoon.

It was about 4:30 pm when I finally decided to give it up and call it a day.

Although I didn't "knock em dead", it was a beautiful day at Playalinda Beach.

Maybe next time I'll head up to Puzzle Lake and try for some American Shad.

Till next time, Tight Lines.

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