Why You Should Never Go Fishing Near An Anthill

This afternoon, Karen and I decided to take Elmo and Odie fishing in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge before the "cold front" moves into the area and she learned why you should never go fishing near an anthill.

We loaded up the truck with fishing gear, a bag of frozen blue crabs, and a bucket for live bait that Karen wanted to use.

We stopped for some drinks and to get some live mullet and headed to where she wanted to fish around Peacocks Pocket road.   The air temperature was 83 degrees and there was a brisk wind blowing hard enough to make detecting a bite a problem.

When we got to "her" spot, Karen pitched out a live mullet on her rig, while I set out a cut bait, a half of a blue crab and a live mullet on three rods that I was tending to.

I was fishing on the Indian River side of the road facing the wind and Karen was fishing the marsh canal where the water was calmer.

It didn't take long for me to hook up with a slot sea trout on the live mullet which I quickly released.  I put out a new mullet and sat down for another fish to hit.

I missed either a redfish or black drum on the blue crab and put another crab out in the same area, but after almost an hour of fishing, I never had another bite.

Karen was yelling at me from where she was fishing that she had a fish on so I ran to where she was fishing to take a video of the action.

She had on an oversize redfish on that had taken her line down the canal and around some brush piles.    She wanted me to take the rod but I was on the cell phone taking this video while she fell down the bank and fought the fish.

As the fish went up and down the canal, she walked into an anthill.   At first I thought she just kidding, but when I saw that she really needed help, I gave her the phone and took her rod.  While she shook off the ants from her legs, I let the fish have too much slack and it headed directly to the brush pile along the bank and broke off.

Needless to say, Karen wasn't a happy camper.  I was correctly blamed for losing her fish and I didn't hear the end of it until we got home.

We moved to two other spots and fished live mullet with no more bites until we left the refuge.

Till next time, Tight Lines and remember; you should never go fishing near an anthill.