Bio Lab Snook

I was planning to hit the beach this morning, but around 9:00 am, a Space X launch rumbled the house so I thought that it would be closed.

After mowing the lawn this morning and taking care of some chores, my wife asked me if I wanted to grab some fast food and take the boys for a ride in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge if it was open.

I was hungry and readily agreed; so we packed up Elmo and Odie and headed to Arby's for some grub.

With a bag of food in hand we headed for the closest spot where we could eat, which was Gator Creek.  

Gator creek was cordoned off, apparently because of work they were doing on the culverts, but East Gator Creek was open.  

We took the turn and were stopped briefly by a couple of guys who were pulling out their Gheenoe.  

When I asked if they had caught anything, the guy said they were fly fishing and caught no fish.  They told me that they spotted several black drum and a lone redfish but all the fish had lockjaw.

I wished them well and suggested that next time they should try the other side of the road where there were some nice sea trout, tarpon, and reds.

After we left them, we pulled over to enjoy our sandwiches and decided to head over to Bio Lab Road.

As we pulled into Bio Lab Road, I was surprised at how flat the water was on the Mosquito Lagoon and how many bank fishermen were along the road.

Karen said that it was probably because of the Christmas Holiday and I agreed.

We saw one little girl reeling in a small puppy drum and talked to several other bank fishermen who were using shrimp for bait that caught at least a couple of keeper drum.

I decided to head to the flats at Whale Tail to see if anyone was in that area.

We got to an area where I caught some snook a few weeks ago and although there were a couple of guys fishing with live bait in the area, decided to toss a topwater bait.  They weren't catching anything and warned us about a large alligator that was along the bank.

Karen immediately went after Odie and Elmo and put them in the truck to make sure they didn't become dinner for the gator.

I chose a rod that had a Badonk A Donk on and started casting along the mangrove roots.

On my first cast  I missed a fish that hit the bait as I was pulling it out of the water for another cast.

Several casts later I had a nice hit from a slot size snook and after a decent fight took a pic and released the fish.

I continued fishing and after 5 or 6 more casts into another area, got another hookup with a smaller snook that I also released.  

Karen took the pic below of the fish before I returned it.

I caught and released two more snook before a guy in a Kayak came into the area and put down the bite.

He was casting what looked like a white swimbait but he didn't seem to be having any luck.  Anyway, the fish stopped hitting my topwater bait so I took a couple of pics of the area before packing it in.

We left Bio Lab Road and exited via Playalinda Beach road to head back home.

Karen was getting tired and I was ready to call it a day.

Might get out tomorrow to hit the beach or try for some more snook.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.