Super Bowl Sunday Fishing

Superbowl Sunday fishing this afternoon was almost spiritual.

Evidently everyone was home watching the pre-game activities because I only saw one other angler fishing Peacocks Pocket road.

There were a few sight seers watching the gators and waterfowl, but except for very few cars, I had the wildlife refuge virtually to myself.

   

The temperature was in the low 60s when I started fishing and it went down to the high 50s when I finally left for home.

The water was flat with almost no wind to break up the glassy surface.  This made for some difficult fishing.

I took four spinning rods along this afternoon and decided to fish only soft paddle tail baits for sea trout.

As I proceeded down Peacocks Pocket road I "jump fished" and stopped to cast in at least a dozen locations.

Except for a few small sea trout and one small redfish, I can't brag about having a stellar day fishing but at least I caught fish.

The cool weather made it necessary to fish the baits super slow this afternoon.

Yesterday when Karen and I fished the area, it was warmer and there were more fishermen and kayakers all over the area.

Although we didn't catch anything, yesterday, I missed a nice redfish and several nice sea trout at around 5:00 pm.

I kept yanking the baits out of their mouths because I was fishing too fast and trying to set the hook quickly.

Today, I slowed down and started hooking fish, but the fish weren't as active or as willing to hit the baits.

As the sun started to dip to the horizon, it started to get really chilly so I opted to head for home.

 Suberbowl Sunday fishing would have been much better if the temperature was a few degrees warmer but all in all it was another great day fishing and birdwatching in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Till next time,

Tight Lines! 

Birdwatching In The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Sunday was a beautiful day for birdwatching in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

I took my wife, our wonder dog Elmo, my Nikon CoolPix 8700 camera, and a few fishing rods to search for fish and birdlife.

Instead of taking the long drive through unimproved Shiloh road, we went directly over Haulover canal to the section near Black Point Drive around the Indian River Lagoon.

There seemed to be more different types of birds in the area, congregating mainly in the marshes adjacent to the river.

The warm temperature also brought out the alligators en masse. They were all over the drives sunning themselves along the banks in the marsh areas.

I'll let the pics and movie clips speak for themselves.



We halfheartedly dropped baits in a couple of areas, mainly around Peacock Pocket, with nothing to really write home about.

I believe that the extreme cold fronts killed off the vast percentage of fish in the very shallow water areas we normally frequent. The Wildlife Officers that I spoke with about the poor fishing in these areas, agreed with my observation.

Fishing in the Indian River side is still decent for black drum and redfish. There are a lot of drum in the river, and they are biting on shrimp, cut baits, and whole blue crab.

Enjoy the pics.

Till next time, Tight Lines!