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.