Haulover Canal Doldrums

Haulover Canal fishing is usually good to excellent this time of the year, so I decided to drive over and see if anybody was catching and just not fishing.

I considered bringing Elmo and Odie along for the ride, but I decided against it at the last minute if I decided to hit Playalinda Beach instead.

I stopped at the bait shop and after getting the skinny on the fishing conditions, I decided to hit the beach first to see if the surf fishing was any good.

After picking up a bag each of frozen sand fleas, shrimp, and finger mullet, the beach was my first stop.

It was late in the afternoon and more traffic was coming out than in.  When I finally got to the toll both, I asked about the tide and Pompano fishing.

The attendant said that the fishing for Pompano was great the last two weeks but today the bite stopped at about 10:30am.  High tide was at about the same time so I decided not to fish the beach at all and turned around and fish Haulover Canal instead.

I drove into Bairs Cove boat launch road and parked at the first open spot, which just happened to be at the bridge.

Several people were fishing around the area, but nobody seemed to be catching any fish.   The water in the canal was dead calm with no visible current, and there were several boats fishing the pilings under and around the bridge.

I pitched out a river rod with an Okuma bait runner reel loaded with 30 pound PowerPro line and a sliding sinker rig as terminal tackle.  I baited up with a quarter of a blue crab and sat down to wait.

A "fantasy yacht " silently cruised through the canal along with several smaller boats, but not one person fishing in my sight caught any fish during the time I stayed at the spot.

After losing and having to re-tie three rigs to the Coquina outcroppings, I decided to call it a day for that spot..

I drove towards the boat launch and pulled into a spot that was away from any possible boat trailer traffic.

I always carry a topwater rod with my favorite Chug Bug bait, and since the sun was slowly going down, I thought I might pick up some topwater action with speckled sea trout.

I walked down to a cove and after fan casting the Chug Bug a dozen or more times, I was rewarded with a nice sea trout that looked like it was just under the slot.

I released the fish and after a few more casts picked up a couple more before moving on to another area.  All the fish were just under the slot, but at least I didn't get skunked.

I drove towards the "Boy Scout" encampment to make my last stop and pulled into a spot at the point.

The Chug Bug was ready so I started fan casting from the shallow point out into deeper water.

It took only a few casts before a small sea trout nailed the bait.  I released the fish and continued casting the area.  Several casts later, I caught another small trout that was a clone to the first.

 

 I heard a school of Black Drum "drumming" along the deeper channel but I didn't feel like dunking a bait for them.  Instead, I continued fishing the top water bait to see if I could pick up a winter gator trout.

I probably should have dropped a shrimp into the area, because I never got another fish before the sun finally set.

As the gnats started eating me alive, I loaded up my rod and headed to the house for some dinner.

Hopefully I'll be able to hit the beach tomorrow and pick up a couple of Pomps for dinner.

Till next time,
Tight Lines.