Redfish In The Marsh Canals

During January and February, there are plenty of redfish in the marsh canals of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

This afternoon, Karen and I decided to take Elmo and Odie, our two "wonder dogs" out for a ride in the refuge.

At first we weren't going to take any fishing equipment along but at the last moment, I loaded up three spinning rods and a bucket for bait before leaving the house.

When we stopped at the bait store, I wanted to get some mud minnows for bait but they were almost out of everything, so I had the girl pick out a dozen of the nicer looking shrimp and headed out to Peacocks Pocket road.

It was about 4:00 pm when we left the house, so I decided to hit a spot where I picked up some trout the other afternoon.

We stopped at the spot and fished for about 45 minutes or so before moving on to a spot where Karen picked up a nice red the other day.

The water was dead flat today and the air temperature was in the low 70s when we eased up to her spot.

Karen started fishing with a leftover mud minnow while I walked the road tossing a paddle tail DOA bait to several likely looking spots.

I managed to catch a couple small sea trout before losing my bait to a snag.  As I walked back to the road I decided to try fishing with a live shrimp on my other spinning rod.

I tossed the bait in and set the rod down as a couple pulled up to me in their pickup truck and started talking about the fishing.

He introduced himself as Lewis (I think) and his partner as Teresa.  He said they had caught some small redfish, sea trout, catfish and even a stingray, all on shimp.

I told him about this site as he drove away and I continued fishing.

I caught another small sea trout on the shrimp and was going to bait up with another one when Karen said she had a fish on.

I walked over to where she was fishing an took this video of her landing the fish.

The fish put up a decent fight and almost got off when it wrapped itself around a stickup in the canal, but by luck it swam back out and continued fighting.

I cut the video off when I couldn't get the Boca Grip on the fish and took these pics afterwards.

The beautifully colored redfish was a hare over 33 inches and was super fat.

After taking some quick pics, I released the fish and as the mosquitos were buzzing around my head and we decided to head for home.

I've been working in Mobile, Al. and except for the bull reds that are caught during the spawn, the fish I've seen caught there haven't been as large as the redfish in the marsh canals we manage to catch in the refuge.

Regardless of their size, nothing beats catching a big redfish in a small marsh canal.

Till next time, Tight Lines.