Fishing The Open Culverts

Went to the river to check out the water levels yesterday and decided to try fishing the open culverts for a sea trout or red.

I took along three spinning rods rigged with a topwater bait, a paddle tail jerk bait and a gold Johnson Sprite spoon, just in case everything else failed.

The water levels in the marsh and in the lagoons are the highest I have ever seen and the fish are taking advantage of the situation by foraging in areas where they seldom swim.

I spotted several nice size redfish in the marsh areas off of Peacocks Pocket Road foraging with their backs out of the water in the marsh grass.

The weather was great for bird watching but not so great for fishing topwater baits.  The temperature was in the 80s and there was almost no wind blowing in the marsh.  A slight breeze was blowing on the Indian River side just enough to make a small ripple.

I was surprised at the number of bank fishermen in the refuge.  I counted at least a dozen vehicles parked along the river and many more fishermen dunking cut baits and live mullet for redfish.

Two of the guys I spoke with said they caught several catfish and only a couple of reds, but the redfish were definitely biting.

As I drove along Peacocks Pocket road, I stopped several times to blind cast at likely looking areas but got not action.  The fish were spooky and foraging far off from the road beyond casting distance.

As I passed a couple of culverts, I decided to concentrate on fishing the open culverts instead of my usual areas.

From past experience, I knew that the fish concentrate around the culverts to pick off small baitfish and crustaceans that are flushed into either the river or the "swamp" when they are open and today several had strong flows.

At the first spot I fished, I got a hit on a paddle tail bait but no hookup, so I moved on to the next set.

At that spot I pulled over and slowly edged up through the high grass to take a peek at the area.

At first there wasn't much action but after a minute or two I spotted several large sea trout right at the bank picking off finger mullet at the open culverts.  The fish didn't appear to be in a hurry and at times their backs were out of the water.

I took this video of the action before pulling out my fishing rod.

There were at least half a dozen sea trout at the culverts that were in the 20" to 30" category but they were in no mood to hit any of my baits.

I had a bump on the paddle tail bait but nothing on the topwater lure so I decided to go to my favorite Johnson Sprite gold spoon.

That did the trick.  On the second cast along the bank, a nice long (but skinny) 26" sea trout nailed the spoon.  The fish put up a short fight as I horsed it up the bank to take a couple of pics.

The fish was a female that had just come off the spawn, so I quickly released her to fight another day.

After a short wait to let things die down, I flipped the spoon around the other culvert and after a few casts hooked up with another sea trout about the same size as the first fish.

I released the second fish and continued fishing but the fish were spooked.

As I was being eaten alive by the gnats, I was ready to head for home but when I saw a gator trout of at least 30 inches swimming up to the culvert, I had to give it at least a few more casts.

On the third cast in front of the fish, another smaller sea trout nailed the spoon and after a brief tussle was hoisted up the bank.

I kept casting the spoon and the paddle tail bait into the area but the fish were put down and had quit biting.

At this point, home seemed like a good idea, so I slowly drove towards the Kayak launch towards home.

On the way out of the refuge, it seemed like every good spot on the road had a bank fishermen on it.  Most had several rods out, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.   I hope they were catching redfish but for me, I prefer fishing the open culverts.

Till next time, Tight Lines.