Plenty Of Drum In The River

Right now there are plenty of drum in the river as well as the Mosquito Lagoon and anglers have been catching them in good numbers from the bank and on the flats.

I haven't been fishing this area for awhile but yesterday when I finally managed to get out and scout the areas around the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a good number of bank fishermen were catching slot size black drum and redfish.

As I crossed the A. Max Brewer Bridge towards NASA, I was surprised to see how many people were on the North side of the causeway partying and parasailing.  I was under the impression that gatherings were limited to 50 people but apparently nobody read the memo.

As I drove past all the partying, I spotted the sign that said Playalinda Beach was closed.

I drove into East Gator Creek and planned to fish a couple of spots with a topwater bait, but both of them were already occupied with bank fishermen dunking shrimp and chunk baits.

One guy I spoke with had five rods staked out and said he had been limiting out on black drum along the banks of the Indian River for the past week.  He had been using shrimp for bait and said that all the fish were in the slot.,

I continued driving around the area and stopped a few times to chuck a Chug Bug around some promising areas just to say that I had "wet a line". 

I had one follow up but no takers; probably because the conditions were not great for topwater bait fishing.  The water was too choppy in most areas to work the lure properly.

I decided to check out the exit to Peacocks Pocket Road which is still closed and as I turned into Catfish Creek Loop I stopped to talk to a couple of guys fishing at the culverts.

When I asked Chris and his friend if they had caught any fish, Chris was happy to show me a couple of nice slot size black drum that he had caught on live shrimp.

When I asked for a pic, he happily obliged with the two below.

It was getting dark as I navigated the unimproved road but as I slowly drove around the far side of Catfish Creek, every fishing spot was taken.

A couple of guys who were fishing at the new culverts had several rods staked out and as I drove by, one of them was unhooking an under size redfish.  He told me he was using shrimp for bait and that they were catching a lot of reds and black drum.

By the time I drove out of the Catfish Creek area, I decided to walk over the 1.8 mile bridge before heading home and having to listen to the depressing news about the coronavirus on the television.