Shrimping In The Indian River

I heard that the shrimping in the Indian River had improved so I decided to drive down to the two fishing piers at the A. Max Breswer Bridge and see for myself if the reports I received were true.

It was around 8:00 pm when I parked my truck and the air temperature was in the mid 50s.  There was a slight wind blowing just enough to make a coat necessary.

As I walked up to the lower fishing pier, I noted that it was occupied mainly by people with shrimp nets.  I didn't see one fisherman on the concrete pier.

I talked to several people who were hanging over the rail trying to spot the elusive crustaceans drifting by over their underwater lights, and most said that they had just started.

A couple of jovial guys were ribbing each other about missing shrimp but everybody seemed to be having a good time.

Nobody had a "full pull" but a couple of guys had several jumbo shrimp in their buckets.

The sea trout seemed to be eating a lot of the shrimp that everybody was trying to net.  I spotted several slot size trout over the lights among the mostly under slot schools of fish and a couple of bull redfish that may have been after the trout.

I took a few pics and videos of the sea trout eating what everybody was trying to catch for dinner and asked a couple of people if the shrimping had been as good as I was told.

One fellow said that "a couple of nights ago" he had about 100 or so shrimp and that the shrimping had indeed gotten better.   He said that nobody on either fishing pier had gotten a "full pull".

He had six good sized shrimp in his bucket and about the same in the boot of his shrimp net when I took this pic.  Click pic for video.

After a while when the wind picked up a bit I started to get chilled so I decided to head home.

As I was leaving, a sport shrimper named Lon was just setting out his home made shrimp lights so I asked him where he got them.

He said he made them and was selling them for $60.00 a piece on Craig's List. 

He showed me a couple and we talked a bit about he made them and at what cost.

The home made lights put out a good bit of light underwater and apparently worked quite well.

I took a couple of pics of Lon's work and of him before heading home to get something to eat.

The weather this past week has not been conducive to fishing, so I haven't been making any posts but with any luck I'll be able to wet a line before I head back to work.

Till then,

Tight Lines