You Gotta Love October Redfish In The Marsh

You really gotta love fishing for October redfish in the marsh.

This afternoon my wife and I decided to take Elmo and Odie along with us for a ride to Burger King and to see if Peacocks Pocket road was open to vehicle traffic. 

Fishing the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is one of my favorite weekend activities and I try to hit the refuge at least one day every weekend.

I packed a few rods and after grabbing a bite to eat we headed for Peacocks Pocket road.

Gator Creek road was open but East Gator Creek road and Catfish Creek Loop were still barricaded for some reason.

We took the long route and entered Peacocks Pocket road from the easternmost entrance.

The air temperature was in the mid 80s early this afternoon, and there was a moderate wind blowing in the refuge.

Surprisingly, there was relatively little activity in the refuge.  We encountered only three other fishermen during our brief scouting trip.

We passed the shallow water kayak launch and just past the first set of culverts, Karen spotted some redfish tailing in a shallow pond.  There were at least five that we spotted and they all appeared to be oversize.

Here is a short video of the activity.



The fish were well out of casting range so I didn't bother trying to toss any lures around.

About half way down the road, we met up with Ron, a fellow angler I see almost every weekend.

He told me he caught a black drum on the Indian River side of the road on some shrimp.  I didn't want to bother his fishing so we continued down the road.

Karen got the bug when she saw the tailing reds, so we decided to head to the house and hit the area later in the afternoon.

We left the house around 3:30 pm, this time without Elmo and Odie.  I love them to death but they're a handful when we go fishing.

This time we entered Peacocks Pocket road from the first entrance and headed to a couple of spots I hadn't been able to fish during the closure.

As we entered the area, a fellow reader of this blog stopped and asked me if Karen and I wanted some live finger mullet.  I readily accepted and he gave us about half a dozen small mullet.  He introduced himself as James and said he didn't do too well fishing the area today.

I thanked him for the bait and we continued to the first area to fish.

When we got to our first spot, we didn't waste much time there.  I had a tap on a gold spoon and Karen didn't get a hit, so we moved on up the road.

The water on the marsh side of the road today was chocolate colored due to the brown algae bloom, so I decided to start using live bait instead of artificial lures.

The second spot we stopped to fish wasn't much better than the first area.  We wasted about an hour there before heading to another spot up the road where I often pick up some sea trout and reds.

We set out two rods with finger mullet, a third with fiddler crabs and Karen lobbed out a Cajun Thunder rig with some fresh dead shrimp we bought at the bait store.

It didn't take long before I hooked up with an oversize redfish.

The big red nailed the mullet and headed up and down the marsh canal for several nice runs before I could land the fish.

I asked Karen to take a video of the action as best she could.  Her results are below.


The fish measured in just at 35 inches with the tail pinched.

I released the fish and Karen immediately decided she wanted to switch to a live mullet. 

I baited her up and she flipped the bait out to the opposite bank.

It was another half hour or so before I got another hit and I lost the finger mullet to a large sea trout.  I'm not used to fishing live bait and I pulled the mullet out of the fish's mouth.

About the time I re-baited, Karen said she had a big fish on so I got the Boca Grip and camera from the truck to help her out and film the action.

This fish didn't want to be landed.  It took off up the marsh canal and put up a really good fight before finally giving it up.

Here is a video of the action along with some pics.



After Karen landed her big red, the wind started picking up and the sky darkened.  We fished a little longer and Karen and I both missed another fish before we decided to head for home.

You gotta love October redfish in the marsh!

Persistence Is The Name Of The Game

This afternoon I remembered that persistence is the name of the game when going after redfish in the salt marsh.

My wife and I spent most of the day looking for shrubbery to spruce up or Koi pond so I didn't get a chance to even think about fishing until around 5:30 pm.

Karen wanted to finish planting what was left of the hummingbird and butterfly attracting shrubs that we bought so I grabbed Elmo and a couple of spinning rods and headed for the "swamp".

There were rain clouds in the area and for most of the day it rained sporadically.  The air temperature was in the high 70s and there was a slight breeze over the water.

I decided to give Peacocks Pocket road a try and was wondering if Elmo and I were on a fool's errand today.  There were a lot of visitors and fishermen running around Peacocks Pocket road and the fish I spotted were spooky.

I started out tossing a Gold and Black back Chug Bug until the wind started to pick up and I couldn't make a good presentation.

I had a couple of hits on the Chug Bug from small sea trout but no keepers.

When presenting the Chug Bug became more like work than fun, I switched over to a gold
Johnson The Original Sprite Spoon smeared with Pro-Cure inshore salt water gel.

I had three hits in two locations that Elmo and I stopped at and finally decided to fish a culvert in a small pond where I knew redfish cruised this time of year.

Due to the rains this past week, the water levels in the marsh are up and the reds were foraging in the weeds for crabs, shrimp and other baitfish.

I targeted the edges of the weeds and drop offs next to weedy areas and was rewarded with a small sea trout.

I moved up to another culvert and cast the gold spoon into a shallow weedy area and after about four cranks of the reel handle was rewarded with a nice hit.

At first I thought it was a large sea trout but when the fish made it's first run I knew it was a big red.

 

The fish took off down the marsh canal and after a 15 minute battle and five more long runs I finally managed to "lip" the big redfish from the water.

I stumbled up the bank and took several pics of the redfish before releasing it.

The fish measured in at exactly 33" to the folded tail.

The redfish must have been really hungry because it inhaled the gold spoon.  I had a little trouble trying to get the spoon out of the fish's mouth but finally managed to gently push the barbs back through it's gills to free it.

I took a final brief video of the fish before releasing it.  It took a minute or so for it to revive but it finally managed to swim off into the deep marsh canal none the worse for wear.


It was getting late, Elmo was getting antsy and I was getting hungry so I headed for home.

Its' been a while since I landed a nice red but as they say; Persistence is the name of the game for redfish.

Till next time, Tight Lines.