Met Harry Potter At Playalinda Beach

Well I never expected to meet "Harry Potter" at Playalinda Beach today, but that's exactly what happened.

After I got through replacing part of the railing on my front porch, I decided to see if anything was going on at the beach.

I loaded up a couple of 7 1/2' river rods, a heavy duty shark rod, picked up some frozen shrimp and finger mullet at the bait shop and headed to Playalinda.

The owner at Capt Hooks Bait shop told me that the Pompano were hitting at lot #l and that a couple of guys said that the black tip sharks and bluefish were strong at lot #8.

With that information logged into the deeper recesses of my noggin, I headed to the beach to scout the area out.

 The lady guard at the shack didn't have much to say about the fishing, so I decided to stop at a few lots to make my own decision on where to start.

I stopped at lot #1 where the Pompano fishermen were supposed to be "nailing" the fish but there were only two guys fishing and a lot of people sunbathing.   I clicked a couple of pics before moving on to check out some of the other lots.

I briefly checked out lot #8 where a lot of people seemed to be partying, but only a couple people were fishing. 

I finally stopped at lot #10 where I usually spend most of my time fishing and hit the spot where all the fishermen seemed to be congregating.

I took a few shots of the area and walked down to see if anyone was catching.

The first guy I talked to was Harry Potter (below) who was relaxing with several rods out in their holders.

When I ask3ed him if anybody was catching fish, he told me that several fishermen were catching whiting, bluefish and a few pompano.   

While he was using clams and sand fleas for bait, the guys to his left were catching "schoolie" bluefish on chunks of finger mullet. 

While we were talking, a fisherman to our left hooked up with a bluefish which he gave to his wife to reel in.  I took a short clip of he action as well as the stops I made, below.

I had originally set my sights on catching a black tip shark but when I saw the blues in the surf, I decided to get a couple of my rods from the truck and try my luck.

It was getting close to the 6:00 pm closing time so I only had about an hour to fish.

I baited up with some frozen finger mullet and after the third or fourth cast hooked a pass crab.

Not a very good start, but I pressed on and eventually hooked and lost a bluefish.  I snelled on another hook and finally landed a decent schoolie bluefish which I gave to Harry.

The tide was coming in and my cell phone and car keys which I placed in my shoes were almost washed out with the waves, but an extremely nice lady grabbed them before they hit the surf.

I quickly blew off the phone and my keys and decided to call it a day.

I gave Harry Potter some mullet and headed for the house.

On my way, I decided to swing by Peacocks Pocket boat launch to see if anyone was catching drum or redfish.

The two guys I talked to that had just finished up for the day both caught a couple of tailing reds on live shrimp.  The one guy said that the fishing in this part of the Indian River was "hit or miss".

The redfish and black drum singles and schools are all over the area, but they are spooky and hard to catch, especially when the water is as calm as it was today.

I thanked them for the information and headed home to dry off my smart phone.

Hope to get out tomorrow for another shot.

Tight Lines and bent rods.