Space Coast Shrimping

Space Coast shrimping has been sporadic to date and this evening was no different.

I went down to the fishing pier this morning to see if the launch was going to materialize at the Cape and discovered that the mission was scrubbed again and rescheduled for tomorrow evening.

While I was there, I checked out the shrimping.

At 3:30 am there were only three people on the fishing pier and two of them were packing up to go

home.

The weather was typical for this time of the year.  The air temperature was in the hiigh 70s and it was windy, which was causing a chop on the water.

I briefly talked with the couple who were "regulars" and learned that shrimping had been "slow" lately.

They had the bottom of their 5 gallon bucket covered with medium to large shrimp which was just enough for a dinner for two.

I took a quick pic and walked over to talk with Kevin who was hanging over the railing watching schools of speckled sea trout eating his potential catch.

We chatted for a while and I took these videos of the sea trout over the lights.

Kevin had about 30 shrimp in his bucket but nothing to brag about.

He told me that he usually doesn't start shrimping until around midnight and for the past few weeks, the schools of trout and black drum have been eating more shrimp than he could net up.

This is also what is happening at Oak Hill where the shrimp are quite a bit smaller.

Most of the sea trout above the lights were  under the slot but after watching for awhile, I noticed that the larger fish were hanging just outside of the lights or under the smaller fish.

I spent about 20 minutes with Kevin watching the schools of fish eating shrimp before heading back home to get some much needed shuteye.

Till next time,
Tight Lines.