Fishing Peacocks Pocket road this afternoon seemed like a good idea, so after a brief scouting trip at Playalinda Beach, I headed to the southern entrance of Pocket Road to try my luck along the road.

I parked off the wire rope barrier at the road and took a light rod spooled with 6 pound line and a small size Creme paddletail bait from my truck to fish with.

They have been working on Peacocks Pocket road for a couple of years and were expected to have it finished up by March of this year, but even though the road has had some massive improvements, it is still not open to vehicle traffic.

However, if you don't mind a tangle in the brush once in a while, you can usually pick up some sea trout, black drum, and redfish along the ditches; especially around the shallow ponds.

As I walked along the road this afternoon, the water in the ditches was like glass in most areas which made delicate casts a necessity.  

I walked a few yards up the road casting into the deeper pools and started catching sea trout on my white Creme bait.   The problem was that except for one fish, all the fish caught were dink trout like the one below.

During the time I was fishing the ditches, I landed and released at least a dozen sea trout in the 10 to 13 inch category and lost my one and only bait on a good size fish that broke off in the vegetation that is still left in the water along the bank by the work crews.   

As they worked on the road, they cut down most of the bushes that were growing along the bank.  Although this makes casting much easer, landing a good fish is damn tough; and there are some big fish in the ditches.

The above pic shows what I'm talking about.

As the insects started to eat me alive, I decided to give up on the fishing and head home for some grub.

Till next time,

Tight Lines

Lost Elmo Today

Karen and I lost Elmo today.   

Elmo was my beloved fishing partner for over 17 years and had a good pampered life with Karen caring for him in his old age during his many illnesses.

Waiting for a Treat

Elmo Ready to Fish

Elmo checking out fish in the culvert

Elmo and Odie Chilling

Although Elmo was suffering with "doggie" dementia, blind from his cataracts, deaf from old age, and had arthritis in his hip, he still was loved by Karen and I till his death this morning.

He will be missed dearly.

Manatees On The Culverts

Went out to Bio Lab road to check out the fishing opportunities and saw a bunch of manatees on the culverts in the southern portion south of Pelican Island.

I took Elmo and Odie along with me to scout the areas and had a great time checking out the wildlife.  The little fishing I had an opportunity to try produced only one hit by what I believe was a small snook.

The fish hit a small Creme paddletail bait that I was tossing around the culverts as I was trying to "match the hatch" to the small glass minnows milling around the outlets.

We spotted several fishermen along Bio Lab wading the flats and dunking baits along the bank, but except for an Osprey that picked up a small redfish, nobody seemed to be catching anything except a bit of sunburn.

As we got closer to Playalinda Beach road, I had to stop for a couple of snakes in the road apparently trying to mate.  I took a short vid of one of them before moving on to the culverts I aimed to fish.

When we got to the culvert, the first thing I noticed were the manatees.  The second thing that caught my attention was a couple of very large alligators that were in the area.  

One was almost on the bank at the culvert checking out a snowy egret that was catching his meal of glass minnows.  I took a video of the scene along with the manatees.

There were 7 or 8 that I spotted in the area with several coming right up to the culvert.  

I tossed a few lures around but since I had the dogs with me, I didn't spend much time fishing.  They had to stay in the truck in the A/C because of the gators.

After a while, I decided to hit the beach to see if anyone was fishing. 

I stopped at a couple of lots and although there were a lot of beach goers getting tans, nobody was fishing.  The tide was out and you could see lots of seaweed edging the high tide margins, which could have been the explanation.

After taking a few pics at both lots, I decided to head home with the boys.

On the way out I spotted a huge soft shelled turtle along the road that apparently didn't like his pic taken. 

 I did it anyway.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.