A Cold March Day In The Refuge

Although it was a cold March day in the refuge today, my wife wanted to take a ride to the "gumball" as she calls the radar dome near the Beacon 42 boat launch.

After almost getting skunked yesterday, I really didn't feel like blindly tossing topwater baits around in the cold weather but I quickly relented and started packing up a few spinning rods.

Elmo and Odie were in the truck almost before I could open the door.

As we drove across the US 1 bridge I decided to drive into Shiloh Road to check out the water levels and see if any of the local guys were picking up any reds on the shallow flats.

As we crossed the first set of culverts, I was genuinely surprised how low the water was in the creeks.  The water had dropped at least a foot and a half, leaving a lot of mud along the banks.

I was going to turn around and leave but Karen spotted a flock of white pelicans in the shallow creek so I tried to get a pic of them.

We went to the wire rope barrier across the road and found three groups of fishermen already dunking shrimp and cut baits for redfish.  The scoop in the area was that a lot of oversize fish were being caught and only a few slot reds.

As we left the area and headed into the refuge, Karen wanted to check out Patillo Creek, so we headed into that area.

A father and daughter team were dunking live shrimp and had caught a couple of black drum at the turnaround but other than that nothing was happening.

We pulled into a spot at the shallow flats on the Indian River to let Elmo and Odie do their duty.

I pulled out my rod and started casting an XPS Slim Dog around the flats and had a half hearted hit on the fifth or sixth cast but other than that, nothing was happening.

It was around 5:30 pm and the air temperature was 53 degrees F when we decided to load up the dogs and head over to Haulover Canal.

The current in the canal was moving quite fast and there were only a few guys fishing for mangrove snapper with shrimp on one side of the canal. 

Other than the egrets and herons that were looking for dinner along the shoreline, I spotted only one other fisherman parked at the bridge.

A lone angler was readying up his rod to start fishing from his kayak at the other end of the canal.

We drove around to the other side of the canal to watch the Manatees that are usually around the boat launch and spotted several at the entrance.  

On the way out, I had to take a pic of this lone vulture waiting for a dinner snack.

It was getting late, the temperature was dropping, and Karen was getting cold so we headed out of the refuge for the house.

On the way home, we spotted a whitetail doe crossing the road.

A perfect ending to a nice day.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.