March Weekend Fishing Report

After trying to find a March weekend fishing report for the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on Google, I decided to write my own Peacocks Pocket fishing report for this weekend.

It's hard to get reliable information about local fishing in the refuge, and although I usually don't often bother looking looking for it on the Internet,  I didn't want to wast time fishing this afternoon if the fish weren't cooperating.

I was looking for table fare today so when I couldn't find an up to date report, I asked Karen if she was interested in taking Odie and Elmo out for a ride in the refuge to see if we could pick up a sea trout or a redfish for dinner.

She readily agreed, so I loaded up several rods and pulled out a relatively fresh ladyfish I caught a couple of weeks ago and froze for just such an occasion.

We headed out to the "swamp" and saw several vehicles around Gator Creek looking at the Roseatte Spoonbills, Snipe, Purple Ibis, and other water fowl.

The air temperature was in the mid 70s and the wind was blowing enough to make casting a problem.

When I saw the first fisherman at Catfish Creek Loop, I stopped and asked him if he was fishing or catching.  He smiled and said he caught a 27" sea trout on a live shrimp and an oversize redfish on a chunk of ladyfish.

Armed with the good news, we headed towards the middle of Peacocks Pocket road to one of Karen's favorite spots.

We picked our spots, put out a couple of rods with shrimp and cut  ladyfish for bait, and sat down to wait.

I was fishing the river side and Karen was fishing the marsh canal.

It was no more than 5 minutes before the bait runner started peeling out line and I had a redfish on the cut bait.  The fish put up a nice fight before I landed and dispatched it.  The redfish was in the slot at 25", just the right size for supper.

As I walked back from stashing the fish in the truck, the other rod was bent and a fish was peeling off line almost as fast as the first fish.

I brought the fish towards the bank and thought I had it in the bag but the hook pulled out just as I bent over to land the fish.  The red was still green and took off like a flash.

Since I caught these two reds in less than a half hour, I thought another fish was a cinch, but I was dead wrong.

I fished for another couple of hours and only managed to hook and release several hard head catfish.

Karen missed a fish and caught a nice catfish in the marsh canal but the redfish were just not in the area she was fishing this evening.

        

Just at dusk I switched to fishing a gold Johnson Sprite spoon and caught three extremely small potted sea trout (above) which I promptly released to grow up into "gators".

Odie was out and about, but Elmo as usual, spent most of the time in the truck.

Odie loves the refuge and likes to keep tabs on the rods.  A born fisherdog..... 

Close to sunset, Karen caught another catfish and after that one, we decided to call it a day.

We packed up, gutted the redfish and headed for home.

Hopefully, the wind will die down some tomorrow and we can try it again.

Till next time, Tight Lines.