Life's A Playalinda Beach

This afternoon I decided to hit Playalinda Beach to see if the waves were conducive to surf fishing without getting beat up too bad.

I left the house around 3:30 pm just as it started sprinkling again.  I packed three spinning rods and a 9 1/2 foot surf rod with an Okuma baitrunner reel loaded with 30 pound Power Pro and a pompano rig.

There was very little traffic at Playalinda Beach today and the beach was relatively devoid of human life.     Most of the human population was at Lot #2, but I decided to stop at the first location that had no cars parked in the lot.

When I drove into lot #6. I was rethinking my spur of the moment decision.  That lot had a stairway going up to a sloping ramp over the dune that was definitely going to provide me with my cardio exercise for the day.

I pulled out my surf rod, the small blue cooler I brought with some frozen shrimp and salted clam, and sand stake for my rod.

When I finally made my trek up the walkway and stopped gasping for air, I but a piece of clam on the bottom hook of the pompano rig, a small headed shrimp on the top hook, and clipped on  a 4 oz. sinker to hold bottom.

The surf was rough but this location had a deep trough right at my feet that ran out about 10 feet that led to a shallow break that was only about 1 foot deep.   A second much deeper trough was where I planned to fish.

I waded out to the break with a small bag of bait in my pocket and started fishing.

Almost immediately I got a hookup with a small hardhead catfish which I quickly released.

For the next hour or so I caught and released 9 more hardheads before finally landing a nice "
dinner size" whiting.

It seemed like the whiting moved in and the cats moved out.  Anyway, I caught three more whiting and lost another wading back to my cooler before the bite stopped.

The tide was still going out and I continued catching a hardhead now and then until I hooked a juvenile black drum.

The drum was under the slot, so I released it and went back to hooking catfish.

Finally, a couple showed up just as I was going to call it a day.  I was really getting tired of fighting the current as I was wading back and forth to the cooler to stow the whiting I was taking home for dinner.

Being knee deep in strong current gets you tired pretty quick, especially if you don't go surf fishing on a regular basis.

I drove around Eddy Creek before leaving the Canaveral National Seashore and headed back to the house.

As I was driving up to Peacocks Pocket road, I made a split decision to check out the fishing at the kayak launch.  The other day when I was walking Peacocks Pocket road, I saw a ton of baitfish in the area with big sea trout busting on them.

As luck would have it, nobody else was in the area so I pulled up to the side of the ramp and pulled out my rod with a Chug Bug and started casting around the bait pods.

I missed two sea trout before finally landing an under size fish which I promptly released.

I switched rods and started fishing with the Zara Spook Puppy topwater bait after the Chug Bug stopped getting hits.   It only took three casts to get a hookup with another under slot sea trout.

I made a ton of casts to several likely looking areas but the bite quit around 6:30 pm so I called my wife and headed home.

On the way out to the main road, I almost ran over a 6 or 7 foot gator  that was in the woods across the road from the ditch that parallels the road.

The gator was really moving as he crossed the road in front of my truck and he never stopped until he hit the water.   I knew that gators are super fast for short bursts, but I didn't know they could run that fast on dry land until today.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful.

When I got home I washed off my rods, cleaned my fish, and had a great dinner.

I love fresh whiting.

Till next time,
Tight Lines.