Cruising Bio Lab Road

The weather was so nice today that when my wife got home from playing with her horse, we decided to try cruising Bio Lab Road with Elmo and Odie.

We didn't leave the house until around 2:30 pm and after stopping at Arby's for some eats, didn't get down to Bio Lab until a little after 3:00 pm.  By then the air temperature had dropped a couple of degreesto from 73 to 69 and with the wind blowing, it was pretty chilly.

As we drove into Bio Lab road past the first culverts, I spotted a small tarpon in the algae brown colored water apparently after small baitfish.  

On the other side of the road, a guy was tending to some crab lines and a small crab trap.

We passed by and were surprised to see the road ahead cluttered with bank fishermen.

 I asked a couple of anglers about the bite and was told that the black drum usually didn't start hitting until around 3:30 in the afternoon.  

Everybody I spoke with was fishing with dead shrimp, which is obviously the bait of choice for these fish, especially in the algae stained water.

 Karen and I passed by several other bank fishermen who had enough rods staked out that they could snag a drum if they didn't bite.

We decided to hit a spot I like to fish where I saw a dead alligator the other day.

When we got to the spot, another angler was tossing an artificial around the area.  

We parked away from him to give him room and I walked up the unimproved road past the barriers to where I hooked and lost a large snook two days ago.

 
I brought enough white Creme Spoiler Shad paddletail baits along with me so I didn't have to worry about running out if I lost one.

I was using a light rod with 8 pound test fluorocarbon main line and on my third cast, lost the bait on a stickup.  I tied on another bait and added some Pro-Cure.

After a couple more casts, I hooked into a very small tarpon that I released after taking his pic.

A couple more casts later I hooked and released a juvenile snook so small, I had to have Karen take a pic before releasing it.  

It has to be my record SMALL snook of the year.

The other angler was apparently not getting any action and left, so Karen let Elmo and Odie out to do their duty while I rigged another rod for her to fish with.

We spent about 45 minutes in the area fishing several spots and I picked up two more small tarpon and one more juvie snook a little larger than the first one I caught.

Karen wasn't getting any action and was getting cold and I wasn't doing much better.  

The air temperature had dropped to 63 and the wind started to pick up making it feel much colder, so we packed up the rods with the dogs and headed home.

On the way out, I had to pull over and take this shot of the sunset.  Awesome....

Today's outing was short and although they were small, we managed to get some action.

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to get out again this week,

Till next time, Tight Lines.