Catfish Creek Loop Redfish

Late yesterday afternoon when I was pitching my favorite Chug Bug around the East Gator Creek in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, I drove up to the barriers at Peacocks Pocket and Catfish Creek Loop roads and ran into Mike and Paul Miller as they were walking out from the barriers.

When I rolled down the window and asked Mike if they caught anything, he showed me a video on his smart phone of a nice oversize Catfish Creek Loop redfish that they picked up earlier.

He said that they caught the redfish while bottom fishing with shrimp on  light tackle and that it took around 18 minutes to land and release the fish.

He was using an open face Shakespeare reel with 10 pound test line and a sliding sinker rig as terminal tackle.

Mike said the fish looked like it was 27" to 30" long and probably weighed 18 to 20 pounds, but when I watched the video again, it looked like it was just over the slot and in the 10 to 12 pound range.

Paul is holding the red in the pic to the left, you be the judge but regardless, it was a nice catch and I appreciate him sharing the video (below) with us.

I'm not sure if Mike or Paul caught the fish, but he did it right.

The cove that they caught it in is in the northern part of the Indian River where redfish cruise close to shore in singles and small schools throughout the day.

They are most active closer to dusk, which is when I like to target them with jerk baits and topwater baits like Chug Bugs, worked super slow.

When I left them, I drove back to a small pond where I missed a couple of small sea trout and a redfish earlier.

I spent about 20 minutes fan casting the Chug Bug around the edges of the pond and had a couple of half hearted hits from trout, but nothing of any size hit my bait so I headed back to the hacienda.

I may come back to the area Sunday to see if I can pick up a fish before I leave town again.

Till then, Tight Lines.