Bio Lab Flats Fishing

After my dentist appoint this morning, I decided to make a scouting trip around the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge to see if Bio Lab flats fishing could be on the agenda this week.

It was raining slightly at the house so I decided to hit Shiloh Marsh road to see if any juvenile tarpon were in the area.

I brought along my 8 wt fly rod, three spinning rods, and a 10 wt. fly rod just for the hell of it.

When I got to Shiloh Road, I didn't see any sign of fish but I stopped anyway to toss a couple of Chug Bugs around the area.

There was a slight breeze over the water on one side of the road but the water on the other side was completely calm.

After several casts to the calm side, I never got a hit or a follow up so I changed over to the smaller size Chug Bug and started casting to likely looking areas on the windy side.

The third cast was a charm and an under size sea trout hit the bait.  I took a pic, released the fish and continued casting.

I caught and released three more sea trout about the same size and two medium sized ladyfish before the bite stopped.

I moved up the unimproved road and stopped to cast into several areas along the way to the barrier and managed a couple of boils, but no fish.

When I got to the barrier, I parked and started fan casting the area with a small size SkitterWalk that I picked up at Bass Pro.

The change in baits produced two small sea trout and a miss from a garfish about two feet long.

I wanted to hit BioLab road before Snook season to scout the area so I left Shiloh and headed to the refuge entrance off of A1A.

Haulover Canal looked desolate.  There were no boats in the canal and I didn't notice anyone fishing from the banks from the bridge so I moved on to Bio Lab.

The road was open and there was a guy parked at the culverts with a fly rod trying to catch snook.

It was around 5:45 pm when I entered the road and there was a lot of fish activity along the weedy shoreline.  The wind was blowing towards the road and the weeds were piling up along the shore where baitfish were apparently hiding.

I spotted three redfish that I tried casting a Chug Bug to but the weeds made a good presentation pretty impossible.

Farther down Bio Lab towards the Whale Tail flats, the water was clean and there were a lot of baitfish schools in the area.  Several times I noticed fish busting on the mullet causing the entire school to scatter.

I stopped twice to cast another Chug Bug towards the schools and caught a couple more sea trout that I quickly released before moving on down the road towards Playalinda Beach road.

I was going to wade another flat farther south but there were two large gators on the flat around the mullet pods that I didn't feel like messing with.

The refuge manager made a wise decision when they made Bio Lab road one way.  The grass alongside the road in several areas was shoulder high and would definitely cause problems with traffic coming in from the beach road.

I found several spots that looked like prime snook water and mentally filed them in my worn memory banks for the opening of Snook season Saturday.

As I exited Bio Lab, I was tired and hungry, so I headed to the house for something to eat.

Hope to get out again before Saturday to firm up a couple more snooky looking spots

Till next time,

Tight Lines.