Night Shrimping On The Indian River Is Still Going Strong

Night shrimping on the Indian River is still going strong in August.

Normally in August the sport shrimping run on the Indian River is over and done with.  However, this year the norms have been redefined by this past winter's severe cold fronts.

It seems like everything has been pushed back a month or so.

Sunday evening I got bored watching the doom and gloom on the boob tube, so I decided to drive down to our new fishing piers and check out the action, if any.

I didn't expect to see many people doing anything but partying at the pavilion but was pleasantly surprised by how many people were on both piers shrimping, catching blue crabs and fishing.

I took these pics of the activity and composed this short video to show the "goings on".

I arrived about 10:00 pm armed with my trusty Nikon and a 7' spinning rod baited with a Rootbeer/Gold D.O.A. Shrimp just in case the trout were biting.

It was windy and there was a little chop on the water.  The shrimpers had their shrimp lights out and the fishermen were doing their thing using mostly live or dead shrimp for bait.

This gentleman in his motorized wheelchair was catching a good number of shrimp and had the bottom of his bucket covered when I got there.

He had only been shrimping since it got dark and expected to net up quite a few more before heading for home.

He told me that he comes to the pier about once a week to shrimp and that this is the first time the shrimp were still running in good numbers through the month of August.

I moved on down the length of the pier taking pictures of all the people enjoying the evenings activities.

One couple even had a crib out there with their kids while shrimping and several others were lounging around on the chairs they brought with them.

I flipped the
D.O.A. Shrimp out a few times around the lights, caught a couple of under size sea trout and missed several more before calling it a night and going home.

On the way out, I took a snippet of this guy's cooler that he was filling up with blue crabs which were drifting by on the surface along with the shrimp.



He told me that he planned to fill it up before leaving.

I wished him well but personally I hate messing with cleaning them.  Especially the smaller ones.

I much prefer soft shelled blue crabs in sandwich form!

I'm happy to be able to report that the night shrimping is still going strong on the Indian River.

Till my next report, Tight Lines.

The New Fixed Span Bridge Is Now Open!

As of yesterday, the new fixed span bridge over the Indian River at the Max Brewer Causeway is now open to public traffic.

The new fixed span bridge span that replaces the old troublesome SR 406 swing span bridge, also known as the A. Max Brewer Bridge, has been under construction since May of 2009.

According to inspectors, the old swing span bridge was considered one of the most unsafe bridges in the state of Florida.

The FDOT project that included the construction of a 300 foot long fishing pier on the west bank under the North side of the bridge is apparently right on schedule.

Lane Closure Schedule For January 30, 2011 to February 5, 2011:

1/31/2011
On Monday traffic will be diverted to the new fixed span bridge and the old swing span bridge will be officially be placed out of service.

Various construction activities will continue to occur that may cause stoppages or intermittent lane closures.

02/05/11
On Saturday, the A. Max Brewer Bridge will be closed to motorist traffic from 9am-11am.

The old bridge was the main conduit for visitors to the Canaveral National Seashore, Playalinda Beach, the Kennedy Space Center, and the Black Point Wildlife Drive in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Hopefully when the demolition of the old swing span bridge is complete, there will be enough left of the span for shrimpers and fishermen to use as casting and shrimping platforms.

Cast netting and the use of generators for shrimping is prohibited on the new fishing pier.

It would be nice if the FDOT would leave portions of the old bridge intact for this purpose, like they did when they constructed the St. Petersburg's Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

We shall see.

9-11-2010 Indian River Fishing Trip

The weather on Saturday was in the low 90s with a slight breeze coming in from the Southwest.

My wife wanted to try out Shiloh Marsh Road on the northern end of the Indian River instead of taking out our Maverick flats boat; so we packed up our rods, my underused cast net, a live bait bucket, and took off for the lagoon.

Coming into Shiloh road we stopped for a two foot water moccasin that was crossing the unimproved road and also saw a couple of deer farther down towards the lagoon.

Rounding the first bend, we saw one angler waist deep in the water about 100 yards out, with four rods in sand spike rod holders, baited up with finger mullet.

This is a great area to fish for the "bull redfish" that come into the shallows to feed on baitfish or small crustaceans and is almost always inhabited by at least one fisherman.

The schools of reds travel up and down the the shorelines and always eventually come into this area.

At the next bend we saw a couple of parked trucks, and a shallow water boat out in the river with several fishermen using the same technique.

Karen and I decided to get some bait instead of just using dead shrimp or lures and try for a really big redfish.

I headed for a culvert that I knew harbored either small ladyfish or mullet and after two or three casts had enough 4" to 6" mullet for our excursion.

On the way I took a few pics of the waterfowl in the area that you might be interested in.

Since it was getting late in the afternoon, we went to a spot that my wife loves to fish and baited up four rods with live finger mullet and dead shrimp.

On one of my rods, a nice redfish picked up my mullet, but after only a very short run wrapped the 10# Cajun line around a stickup and got off.

I missed a second red that I was in too much of a hurry to hook. I'm used to fishing with artificial lures and obviously don't have the patience to wait the proper amount of time before setting the hook.

My wife missed one fish that she thought was a redfish and then just when it was beginning to get dark, she hooked up to a nice slot sized red that put up a respectable fight.

I wanted to keep the fish for dinner, but Karen wanted to release it, so we did.

The mosquitoes were beginning to get nasty and Elmo, our wonder dog, was begging to leave so we all decided to call it a day.

Even though I got "skunked", I enjoyed the trip and got some nice pics of the areas bird life.


The wood storks, egrets, roseate spoonbills, and herons were all massed together feeding in the marsh shallows.

Hope you enjoy the pics and until next time; Tight Lines!