Patillo Creek Culvert Tarpon

It was a gloomy rainy Saturday afternoon, so I decided to wet a line at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

When I drove over the A. Max Brewer Bridge to the refuge and got to the first entrance, I was surprised to see that the roads to Gator Creek and Catfish Creek Loop were cordoned off.

I remembered that there was a SpaceX launch tomorrow, so I decided to drive over to Haulover Canal and check out some other spots.

When I got to the Haulover Bridge, there was a crowd of anglers on both sides of the canal and several boats anchored at both entrances to the canal fishing for oversize reds.

Since I hadn't been to Patillo Creek in a while, I decided to try it out.

I stopped briefly at the first set of culverts when I spotted something hitting on the surface and tossed around a small white Creme paddletail bait for a while.   

After several casts, I had a gar follow the bait and finally got a hookup with a juvenile tarpon of about 14" long.   

I shook off the fish at the bank and continued up to the next set of culverts in hopes of something larger.

When I got to the culverts, the water was really flowing strong and I saw a lot of activity on the surface.  

Tarpon of various sizes were everywhere so I parked the truck and took a couple of rods down to the culvert to fish.

The wind was blowing and there was a misty rain that continued throughout the time I was fishing.  I pulled on my Frogg Toggs and started casting a black backed Badonk-A-Donk smeared up with some Pro-Cure.

On the first cast a large tarpon of about 4 feet or more smashed the topwater bait and tailwalked for a couple of jumps before sending the bait back to me.

I was surprised that fish of that size was in the area so I set my camera on video and set it up on a nail in a board to record any future action.

I started casting the Badonk-A-Donk  around the culvert discharge and had two more hits with a brief hookup before the bite died down.

I switched to the white Creme Spoiler swim bait and started getting more hits.  

After a couple of brief hookups and a lot of "bumps" I switched lures to see if I could get into some larger fish.  

The juvenile tarpon were between 18 and 24 inches or so in length, but after losing a half dozen or so fish, I was getting frustrated.   I just couldn't land a tarpon today for some reason.

Anyway, I kept changing baits and getting hits but no hookups until the rain finally ceased.  When the ran stopped, so did the tarpon bite.

The only lure that was getting any hits was a MirrOlure Heavy Dine sinking bait that I picked up at Bass Pro in Mobile, Al.  I smeared up some Pro-Cure which seemed to help, but I still couldn't manage to land a fish.

I made enough fruitless casts so that my wrist was getting tired so I decided to move to another spot to see if anybody else was catching fish.

Around the bend, I bumped into Al Bookhard and his wife who were fishing the canal for black drum.  

When I asked about his catch, he bent my ear about catching nothing but catfish.  He said that he had caught a limit of black drum when the water was colder, but not much today.

I swapped numbers with him and since I was chilled and tired, headed to the hacienda for some grub.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.