East Gator Creek Topwater Fishing

East Gator Creek topwater fishing this time of the year is great early in the mornings and close to sunset.

When I got home from work this evening, the first thing I did after unloading the truck was to pack a couple of rods and head for the closest water.

It was almost dusk so I headed for one of my favorite places to fish topwater baits, East Gator Creek.

The water was dead calm in most areas which required some finesse on my part, so I chose to start with a super slow, stop and go retrieve that usually produces hits, and this evening was no different.

The first culvert I stopped to fish turned out to be a bust.  My first cast spooked a large fish that looked like a slot redfish.  Several more casts produced a couple of follows, but no hits so I moved on to try some other likely spots.

A couple was fishing with live baits along the bank, so I slowly rolled past them and stopped when I was a few yards away from where they were fishing.

I made a long cast to the opposite bank with a bass pattern Chug Bug, let it sit until the ripples died, and then gave it a little twitch.    A fish swirled on the bait, so I let it sit and repeated the twitch.

This time a nice sea trout hit the Chug Bug and jumped completely out of the water as it took the bait.

The fish sloshed around in the weeds and got off the hook as I was trying to horse it in to the bank.

I heard the couple on the bank talking about "what was he fishing with" as I continued fan casting the area.

After a couple more casts, a small ladyfish nailed the Chug Bug and jumped all over the place until I could land and release it.

I slowly moved up the road and continued casting to likely spots with the same slow retrieve and managed to catch another ladyfish about the same size.

About this time a juvenile gator came up to follow the Chug Bug, so I moved up the road a bit to get away from the pesky little critter.

To make the story short, I managed to land and release five more ladyfish up to about 20" in length and missed another sea trout that looked like it would hit the 22 or 23" mark before the evening bite stopped.

The skeeters were absolutely brutal without any insect repellent which I didn't think about bringing along, so I decided to head for the house and call it a day before I suffered severe loss of blood.

On the way to the bridge, I took a few pics of the Parrish Park boat launch which was nicely lit up.

On a normal day, I would have continued fishing the topwater plug into the evening for some really big sea trout, but after making an 8 1/2 hour drive from Mobile, Al. I wasn't in the mood for much more fishing.

I'll get some in this next week for sure.

Till next time, Tight Lines.

Scouting Trip In The Refuge

I often recommend Playalinda Beach to my readers for it's surf fishing opportunities and relative isolation, particularly during the fall and winter months, but the other day when I took Elmo and Odie for a scouting trip around the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, the Canaveral National Seashore was a mass of humanity.

Not a good place for surf fishermen.

It was early afternoon when we left the house and I didn't really expect to catch any fish, but when I decided to take the "boys" for a ride around thee refuge, I took two rods along; just in case.  One had a Chug Bug and the other was tipped with a gold Johnson's Sprite spoon; my baits of choice.

We made the usual run into East Gator Creek road, past the entrance to Peacocks Pocket road, (which is still closed for repairs) and around Catfish Creek Loop road.

There were a lot of visitors in the refuge and a few fishermen, but most of the people fishing were not catching anything except catfish, stingrays, and a few small sea trout. 

I pitched the Chug Bug around a couple of places where I spotted topwater activity but only picked up a few ladyfish.

 I spotted a juvenile tarpon about 4 feet long rolling in the shallows of Catfish Creek, but it had lockjaw.

We left the area and went past the entrance to Black Point Drive towards Bio Lab road.

I wanted to check out the water conditions at the small boat launch so I drove into the area to see only one boat trailer parked there.

A small flats boat was coming in so I waited to ask the guys what they were catching.  The one guy said they caught a bunch of sea trout up to 25" and saw a few scattered redfish along the potholes.  They didn't spot any large schools of redfish and the water wasn't conducive to sight fishing.  The Mosquito Lagoon was crystal clear but it was windy and choppy.

As I turned around to leave the area, I decided to make a run down Bio Lab road.

At the entrance, to the right of the sign, I noticed that several people were crabbing in the shallows and were apparently doing pretty good.  The one couple had a cooler half full of decent size crabs.

I stopped at three places to pitch the Chug Bug towards some topwater action that I spotted and picked up a couple of ladyfish which I released.

 I switched to the spoon at the last spot and caught four nice size ladyfish around two feed long.  I harvested two of them that were bleeding from gill damage to use for cut bait and released the rest of them to fight another day.

All the way down Bio Lab road, we saw only two fishermen wading the shallows in the lagoon, and closer to Playalinda Beach road, there were a couple more people crabbing.

I briefly thought about driving down to check out the beach, but there was an unusual amount of vehicle traffic heading to the beach, so I headed towards the entrance at the guard shack.  Apparently the July 4th holiday had a lot of people taking off for the week.

As I passed the guard shack I could not believe the amount of traffic entering the Seashore.  There was a line of cars from the shack at the entrance, all the way back to the traffic light at the entrance.

I took a couple of pics and made a mental note to never surf fish on a weekend or holiday.

We left the area and since it was now late in the afternoon, I decided to make another quick run into East Gator Creek. 

I saw a lot of topwater activity and started pitching the Chug Bug smeared up with some Pro-Cure.  I caught two more small ladyfish, missed a sea trout about 25" long twice before it quit eating, and spotted another tarpon about 3 feet long in the creek around the culvert that would not bite before leaving for the house.

All in all it was a productive scouting trip.  I may take out the kayak tomorrow if the wind isn't too bad.

Tight Lines.

July 4th Gator Creek Outing

July 4th. was Independence Day and a free day for me to get out and wet a line.

I was going to take out the kayak but the wind was up and I didn't want to mess around paddling instead of fishing so I headed for East Gator Creek road to try the shallows for some sea trout.

I got there late in the afternoon, and as the winds calmed down I started pitching a Chug Bug around the crystal clear shallows.

At the first culvert, I hooked onto a two foot long ladyfish that jumped all over the shallow trough where I hooked it.  I almost lost it in the mangrove roots but I finally managed to land it and decided to release it.

This afternoon, ladyfish became the target of the day.  I spotted a couple of nice sea trout hitting baitfish on the surface, but every time I made a cast with the Chug Bug, either a ladyfish hit the bait or a gator would start chasing the plug until I had to move on.

I planned to fish some other areas, but the fish were cooperating and I was having a ball catching all sizes of ladyfish, some just a bit larger than the Chug Bug I was using.

At a deeper area in the creek, I spotted a couple of juvenile tarpon rolling on the surface, but they had lockjaw and wouldn't hit my topwater bait or the gold Johnson Sprite spoon I was also using so I moved on.

It was getting close to sunset so I ran around Catfish Creek Loop road where I spotted another juvenile tarpon around 4 feet long in the shallows of the Indian River.  I stopped to make a few casts to the fish but it would not hit any of my offerings.  Another case of lockjaw.

Finally I put up the rods and as it was getting dark, I decided to mingle with the mass of humanity along the Indian River at Parrish Park to watch the fireworks.

I made a rather lengthy video of the proceedings and the area where I spotted the tarpon rolling, if anybody is interested.,

When the fireworks ended, I tried to get out of the parking lot fast, but it proved to be a futile effort.

It took me at least 25 minutes to get back to the house and wash off the rods.

Hopefully, I'll be able to wet another line before I get back out of town.

Tight Lines.