Fishing The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge After Discovery

The Discovery space shuttle launch this Thursday drew a lot of out of town visitors to the Kennedy Space Center.

Many of these visitors also took advantage of the great weather to fish the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River.

This evening when I got home from my work, I was ready to go fishing even though I had just finished driving 3 1/2 hours.

We loaded our gear, along with Elmo our wonder dog and headed for the closest Refuge entrance.

There was definitely a lot of traffic this afternoon in the Wildlife Refuge; no doubt from the shuttle launch.

I dismissed my first thought of fishing Gator Creek and instead headed past Catfish Creek Loop.

Our first couple of stops didn't yield anything, but our third stop looked very promising.

There were small bait fish milling around the shallows in the marsh canal and some larger bait fish in the Indian River side, farther out from shore.

Karen started fishing with a large frozen shrimp and I started casting my favorite hammered gold spoon.

After about a dozen or more casts, I quickly realized that the spoon was not going to work and when I lost it on a stickup, I decided to change baits.

I picked up a green, red eyed, DOA jig head and threaded a watermelon colored Strike King jerkbait onto the business end.

Two casts later to the opposite bank yielded a barely legal "rat" redfish.

As I pulled the fish out from the brush along the bank, I saw that Karen was also fighting what looked like a decent fish on her rod.

When I got closer, I helped her get her fish out from the brush along the bank and got my Nikon from the truck to document the catch.

Her redfish was larger than mine by a few hairs but even though they were legal, we released them to grow up and fight another day.



Since it was getting late, we decided to keep fishing the area we were in instead of jump fishing the rest of the road.

I had two more really good hits before the bite stopped completely.

I walked about 30 yards down the road and saw a swirl that looked like a redfish targeting minnows in the shallows.

I eased a cast across the opposite bank and gingerly pulled the lure into the water. It didn't go more than three feet before a nice fish hit the bait and jumped clear of the water.

It was one of those times I wish I had a video camera on a tripod taking footage of the action.

After a decent fight, I landed the fish which turned out to be a nice 20" sea trout.

The fish inhaled the lure so deep and was bleeding so badly, that I decided to keep the fish for dinner.

Next to blackened redfish, I love sea trout fillets for dinner.

Because it was getting close to dark, the mosquitoes were getting really nasty. Poor Elmo barricaded himself in the back seat of the truck to get away from the pesky critters.

There were so many insects in the air, that a huge flock of swallows came into the area to feast on them. For a short time the scene was reminiscent to Hitchock's "The Birds" and I managed to get a brief clip of them here.

Anyway, Karen missed two more fish and I picked up a couple more taps before we decided to call it a day.

All in all it was a good late afternoon fishing trip. We were both happy with our catch and the beautiful weather.

After I get my work around the house done tomorrow, I hope to at least duplicate this evenings trip in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Till next time,

Tight Lines!

Beautiful Pre Launch Weekend

NASA gave the space shuttle Discovery the green light to launch this Monday morning.

Needless to say, the fishing areas in the Peacocks Pocket portion of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge were filled with out of town sightseers and fishermen.

This Friday evening and Saturday, up until the NASA people ushered everyone out of the unimproved drives, there seemed to be more people than fish in the refuge area.

The shuttle will take its seven member crew to the International Space Station and is expected to liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center on Monday at 6:21 a.m. EDT.

So far the weather looks great for the shuttle launch, and the only concern seems to be fog forming at the Space Center.

The fishing, according to the NASA official that was removing everyone from the area, was pretty slim. Hardly any trout were being caught and I saw no redfish anywhere.

Usually you can spot a single cruising redfish or a small school in this area, but on Saturday I didn't see anything resembling a redfish.

I used my standard variety of soft baits along with a skitter walk on top and a Red Ripper below with no success.

My wife was using a Cajun Thunder type bobber and fresh dead shrimp for bait like the one in the picture below.

In one of the spots that was not cordoned off by NASA, she hooked into something really big that took her bobber rig and just kept on going to parts unknown.

We surmised it was probably a large bull redfish, or one of the over sized black drum that cruise the shallows in this area, because of the way it just took off and kept on running.

She kept looking for her rig to surface, but it never did. Whatever took her hook, line, and bobber rig had to be huge!

Anyway, coming back from the refuge, I took some shots of the new fishing pier that is now under construction. They have finished pouring concrete and have already installed light posts on the pier.

As we crossed the bridge we watched the early bird shrimpers beginning to set up their spots for the night's shrimping activities.

The new pier should be the center of activity when it's completed for both fishermen and hopefully the sport shrimpers. We shall see what rules and regulations the powers that be will impose on us!

As long as the shuttle remains on schedule, I hope to get shots of the launch on Monday to post here.

Till next time, Tight Lines!