Playalinda Beach Whiting

After my doctor's appointment this afternoon, I decided to head over to Playalinda Beach to see if I could catch a few whiting for dinner.

 

I picked up some shrimp at the local tackle shop and headed east to the beach.

Parking Lot #11

The air temperature was hovering in the mid 90s and there was very little wind on the water.

The tide was coming in and there were thunderclouds in the area.

There was almost no one at the beach today and those who were, parked at the closest parking lots.

I stopped briefly at lots # 2, 4, 8, 9, and 10 to see if anyone was fishing, and finally decided to fish lot #11 where I was the only one on the beach.

Shark Fishing

There was one surf fisherman who had a kayak and a shark outfit in a sand spike who was obviously fishing for shark at lot #8.

A couple of other guys who looked like they were fishing for whiting were with their families but other than that, there were no other fishermen on the beach today.

I took along a 12' Tournament surf rod mated to an Okuma bait runner reel and a 7' spinning rod that I use for sea trout along Peacocks Pocket road.

Since the surf was calm, I decided to try the short "river rod" for whiting.

I tied a small number 4 hook  on a short  piece of fluorocarbon leader above a small swivel and 1/4 oz. egg sinker and baited up with a "pinkie" size piece of peeled shrimp.

To save walking back to my cooler, I loaded up a baggie with fresh dead shrimp, stashed it in my pocket and waded out to a small rip.

There were a lot of glass minnows in the surf and some pogies here and there so I started out by flipping my bait only a few feet ahead of the dirty water in the surf.

My strategy paid off immediately.  A small whiting nailed the shrimp and was quickly landed and released.

I was hoping for some "bull" whiting but unfortunately all the fish caught today were 12" and under.

I used the same strategy to catch about two dozen whiting, some of which were placed in the cooler for dinner.

Just for the hell of it I decided to try casting out past the breakers but after wasting a half an hour without getting a single bite, I continued flipping peeled shrimp just past the dirty water in the surf.

After a thunderstorm passed by I caught and released a small black tip shark that ate a piece of shrimp right at my feet.  The pretty fish was only about two feet long but it put up a nice fight on light tackle before giving it up.

I was getting tired of fighting the waves in the rip so I packed up my two rods and headed for the truck.

On the way home I decided to see what Peacocks Pocket road had to offer in the way of fish.

The air temperature was 90 degrees when I drove up to the first set of culverts past the kayak launch and there was absolutely no air movement.  The water was like glass in both the Indian River side of the road and in the marsh.

I tried a gold spoon and a topwater "Bass" Chug Bug on the river side but the only thing it attracted was a large gator that finally caused me to leave the area.

Alligators were grunting and croaking all over the place this afternoon making topwater fishing a challenge.

They followed my Chug Bug at almost every stop I made.

A little way down Peacocks Pocket road I started pitching the Chug Bug around the deeper pools in the marsh canal and was rewarded with a nice slot size sea trout that blasted the lure right out of the water.

I took this pic and released the fish to grow up into a "gator trout".

 

At the next spot my Chug Bug stirred up some action but the fish would not eat the bait , so I switched to a gold spoon and after a couple of casts picked up this slot size trout.

Several casts later into the same area produced another sea trout on the same gold Johnson's Sprite spoon.

The fishing continued like this until I finally decided to give it up for the day.  In the course of an hour and a half, I managed to hook and release six sea trout on Chug Bugs and gold spoons.

The rains we had this past week has caused the water in the marsh areas to rise substantially.  This is causing the sea trout to spread out from their normal feeding areas.  

The redfish are still in the deeper pools of the salt marsh, the Indian River and the Mosquito Lagoon.

With any kind of luck I'll be able to take the boat out this weekend, weather permitting.

Till next time, Tight Lines.