Peacocks Pocket Road Is Open Again

When I got home from work this evening, I decided to take a ride down to the refuge and see if Peacocks Pocket Road is open to the public.

I quickly loaded up a few rods and headed for the refuge hoping for the best.

The rainbow I spotted when crossing the bridge was a good omen and when I finally got to the drive I was happy to see that the barriers were down.

As promised, the road was improved from the A. Max Brewer Memorial Parkway entrances to the Peacocks Pocket  kayak launch on the easternmost entrance and to Catfish Creek Loop on the western entrance.

Peacocks Pocket road from the kayak launch to Catfish Creek Loop road is still unimproved and pristine complete with uncut grass.

They apparently used road graders to level out some of the nasty potholes which should make a lot of bird watchers happy.

Since time was of the essence this evening, I opted to fish a couple of ponds in the marsh area to see if I could pick up a sea trout or two.

As I drove to my spot I passed only two other fishermen.  The first guy was dunking cut baits on the Indian River side for redfish and apparently wasn't doing too well.

The other guys were fishing midway up Peacocks Pocket road on the river side and caught a nice 30" gator trout.

Tyler and his friend (didn't get his name) showed me a pic of the fish on his cell phone.

After taking the pic, they released the fish to fight another day, so I asked them to email me the pic for a post.

When I moved on up to the pond I planned to fish, there was a slight breeze on the water and the air temperature was 81 degrees.

I decided to toss Chug Bugs to the fish so I smeared up one of my favorites with some Pro-Cure Inshore Saltwater Formula and started blind casting to the shallow grass flats in the marsh.

I had a couple of follow ups and finally landed a sea trout of around 22 inches which I released.

Several casts and a couple more follow ups later I finally nailed a nice sea trout that looked to be around the 30" category.

The fish kind of "slurped" down the plug and started running like a redfish.  It made two nice runs before coming in close enough to the bank for me to see how big it was.

The third run was a charm for the fish and the hooks pulled out.

I moved up to the next pond but it was getting dark and after a few casts and several hundred mosquito bites, I decided to head for home.

For some reason the fish abruptly stopped hitting as the sun set.

After I finish working around the house tomorrow, I plan to take our two "wonder dogs" Odie and Elmo along.

I'm glad Peacocks Pocket Road is open again and Till next time, Tight Lines.