Whale Tail Flats

Around 4:00 pm this afternoon, Karen asked me if I wanted to take the "boys" fishing for a little bit, so I hurriedly packed several spinning rods in the truck along with a pack of frozen shrimp and headed to the Whale Tail flats in the Mosquito Lagoon off of Bio Lab Road to wet a line.

We saw several fishermen along BioLab road dunking shrimp and cut baits for redfish but the group I spoke with said they were only catching stingrays and catfish.

 I wished them well and drove to a spot we visited earlier along the southernmost banks of the lagoon.

I rigged Karen's rod with a popping float and split shot to keep her shrimp just off the bottom, and a second rod with a sliding sinker rig to hug bottom for redfish.

Karen took Odie with her to fish "her spot" while I rigged an XPS Slim Dog topwater bait to fish along the mangrove roots on both sides of the culverts.

The cold front was moving through the area and the air temperature dropped from 86 degrees F to 67 degrees F in the span of an hour or so.

I fan cast the area and had only one hit and two followups in an hour's time.

I spotted several families of Manatee moving into the area and finally stopped fishing to take some pics of the gentle animals.  

A family group moved right up to the culverts I was fishing and just stared at me, so I recorded this short video of the oglers.

The video ended with the manatees quickly disappearing when a large snook of about 30" spooked them.   I didn't know that Manatees could move that fast.

The snook was chasing baitfish right up to the deeper water around the culvert and hit one of the Manatees.  

About this time Karen walked back to the truck with Odie and told me that she lost two big fish in the mangrove roots along the bank.

She thought that the fish on the float was a large sea trout and the one on the bottom a redfish.

Regardless, the terminal tackle on both of her rods was gone and since it was almost 6:00 pm, we packed up our gear and headed to Playalinda Beach road to get out of the area before the refuge managers locked the barriers to the road.

They close BioLab and the beach at 6:00 pm, promptly.

We plan to get out again this week to catch what Karen lost in the mangrove roots.

Till next time,

Tight Lines