Peacocks Pocket Road Is Closed For The Season

I was hoping to fish the culverts this afternoon until I learned that Peacocks Pocket Road is closed for the season, again.

When I first moved to Florida many moons ago, Peacocks Pocket road and most of the other areas like Shiloh Road, were open all year long to anglers.  These days, the powers that be seen hell bent on closing the areas we pay or tax dollars to keep open.

Anyway, when I decided to wet a line this afternoon ahead of the cold front that is moving through our area, I saw that the barrier was up prohibiting vehicle traffic from Nov 1st until Feb 15th.   I was told that the closure is due to waterfowl hunting in the area.

As I passed the barrier, I decided to see if anyone was fishing the Catfish Creek area.

The weather was pretty dismal this afternoon.  There was a steady wind blowing in from the northwest and the air temperature was in the low 70s all the time I was around the water.  The wind made it feel like the temperature was in the 50s, and tonight it probably will be.

I stopped to talk to a few of the many fishermen who were dunking a variety of live and dead baits from the shore.  Most were using shrimp and cut baits and a couple of guys were fishing live finger mullet.

To a man, (or woman) nobody was catching anything but catfish and stingrays today.

I had three rods with me and although I tried casting a gold Johnson Sprite spoon into several areas where I caught redfish in the past, I never got a hit and eventually lost the spoon to a mangrove root.

The windy conditions made casting a pain, so I didn't bother to spend much time fishing into the wind.  I spent about an hour and a half around on the water, mostly talking to other fishermen, before deciding to call it a day.

As I was driving around Catfish Creek Loop, there were actually small whitecaps on the surface.

A great day for fishing but not for catching!

Till next time,
Tight Lines.