Karen Scores Another 30 Inch Redfish In The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge Fishing

The fishing this week has been steadily improving with lots of redfish and sea trout being caught in the Mosquito Lagoon, Northern Indian River and mash areas of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Friday's fishing trip was spattered with small to medium size sea trout catches along with Ladyfish, a Garfish, Needlefish and three missed redfish. 

All the catches were made on either Chug Bugs or an XPS topwater "walk the dog" type topwater bait.

Most of the fish were caught towards dusk around the open culverts, as the sun was going down.

I managed to pick up three sea trout back to back on a Chug Bug at the boat launch in a matter of 15 minutes.

For some reason the fish were not hitting jerkbaits or spoons however, the live bait fishermen I spoke with were catching redfish on fresh cut mullet baits.

Fishing at Dusk on the Indian River

My wife and I went out  Saturday afternoon to see if we could catch a redfish or two and she did quite well.

I was using Chug Bugs at an open culvert at the Peacocks Pocket boat launch where I caught several sea trout yesterday evening, but only had a few follow ups. 

None of the fish were interested in my topwater baits.  I caught a juvenile needlefish on a gold spoon but nothing of any size.

Karen and I moved to a small pond and I switched to cut ladyfish for bait.  I cut up a ladyfish and smeared on some Pro-Cure for "flavoring" for Karen and myself and we settled down to enjoy the afternoon.

I was getting bored so I picked up another rod and started casting a South American Peacock Bass topwater lure around just to see if I could stir up some action. 

As usual, as soon as I started fooling around with to other rod, a redfish picked up my cut bait and started peeling off line.   Karen yelled at me to pick up the rod and as I started to pick it up, the fish dropped the bait. 

I put on another piece of ladyfish and set out a second rod to cover more area.  

After about five minutes we saw a large school of reds move up the marsh canal and as they moved into the small pond; one of them picked up Karen's bait and started peeling off line.

I went to the truck to get the Boca Grip and the camera when I saw that it was a nice fish and started taking a video of the action.  Unfortunately the battery in the cam was almost gone so I only got the first part of the battle.

Her redfish put up a good fight and almost got free when it wrapped around some mangrove roots.  I told Karen to give it a slack line and the fish turned back out to open water.  About ten minutes later she got the fish close enough for me to put a grip on it and land it.

I took these pics, measured the fish and promptly released it.  The fish measured in at a "fat" 30 inches and definitely made her day.

Hoisting Her Redfish

Nice Red

She hooked the fish at around 6:45 pm and by the time she landed it, it was almost dark. 

We continued fishing for few minutes until the mosquitoes moved in and caused us to leave.  They get particularly viscous at dusk.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll get another shot at a red or two.  This time we plan on bringing along Elmo and Odie.  That ought to be a real trip!

Till next time, Tight Lines.