Fishing The Creeks

Fishing the creeks in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge was always productive during February, but since they have been closed indefinitely, the creeks at Shiloh Road provide a good second choice.

Around 3:30 pm this afternoon, Karen asked me if I wanted to take the "boys" fishing for a while.

It took a microsecond to agree and start packing up my rods for the trip.

We stopped at Mosquito Lagoon Bait and Tackle and picked up some live shrimp and a few mud minnows and headed back to Shiloh Road to fish either the river or the creeks.

The air temperature today was in the low 70s and there was no wind over the water.  The glassy conditions made topwater bait fishing a poor choice and since we had Elmo and Odie along, we parked at a suitable location, pulled out a couple of portable chairs and set out our baits.

I had two Okuma Avenger baitrunner reels set out with mud minnows that were the size of large finger mullet, and Karen was using a Penn Fierce II bait runner spin fishing outfit with light line, a float, and a live shrimp for bait.

There wasn't a lot of activity in the water but Karen and I managed to catch a few large hard head catfish on the shrimp.  The mud minnows were lively, and Odie enjoyed watching them swim around, but evidently the fish just weren't in the mood for them today.

I impatiently sat for over an hour without another bite on the mud minnows, while Karen pulled in two more large catfish and just at dusk hooked into a nice slot redfish.

I took a short video of the action below, click the pic:

I unhooked the red and released it to fight another day.

After catching the redfish, Karen was ready to go home and since the mosquitoes were getting nasty towards dusk, I readily agreed with her.

We packed up our rods, released the rest of the mud minnows and headed home for a crock pot meal I finished yesterday.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.

Shiloh Road Creek Redfish

Karen and I left the house around 3:30 pm this afternoon to get in a little fishing together before I head back to work.

Even though they were misbehaving, we decided to take  Elmo and Odie along at the last minute.

They always appreciate going on an outing. 

I wanted to catch something today so we decided to hit the bait shop and pick up a dozen select shrimp and a couple of Styrofoam floats.

Since we had the dogs along, I decided to head for Shiloh road and do some bait fishing in the northern Indian River flats, or the creeks feeding into it for creek redfish.

The first set of culverts looked barren.  The water was flat and calm, and there was no sign of fish in the area, so we headed up the dirt road to another spot I often fish in the spring for Snook.

We walked down to the shallow creek and both pitched out our shrimp.  I was using a Penn baitrunner reel with 10 pound line so I set the it on free spool and propped it up to wait for a bite.

Karen was taking care of Odie while I walked up the bank of the creek  tossing a Creme paddle tail bait around on my other rod hoping for a hit.

Karen had the first hookup on her shrimp, but missed the fish.  She was trying to set the hook too quickly and pulled the shrimp out of the fish's mouth.   She put on a fresh bait, and missed two more fish the same way and was starting to get irritated about not being able to hook into one.

Meanwhile, I also missed two fish on the Creme bait for the same reason before getting a bite on the live shrimp .  I was jerking the bait out of the mouth of the fish instead of giving the fish some time before setting the hook.

This time as the float started  moving up the creek, I waited for it to go under.   I reeled in the slack and set the hook.

The redfish put up a nice fight for it's size and acted like an over slot fish until I got it close enough to the bank to see that it was in the slot.

I did my usual trick of taking a video of the action with my cell phone while fighting the fish.  Click the pic below.

I unhooked the red and released it to fight another day and put on another shrimp.

Meanwhile, Karen finally hooked into a fish.  I thought it was a redfish at first but as it got close to the bank it was a nice size catfish.  

I unhooked the fish and returned it to the water.  

Karen was happy she didn't get skunked and we both continued fishing until the mosquitoes became unbearable and we decided to head for home.

We still have some live shrimp in the cooler so we plan to try again tomorrow.

The owner of the bait shop said Bio Lab road was getting hot for reds and sea trout along the shallow flats.

Till next time

Tight Lines.