Evening Redfish

Friday evening proved to be productive on the redfish front.

The evenings fishing excursion in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Preserve was something I was looking forward to.

After putting in a good bit of windshield time at work this past week, it was nice to chill out and get some quality fishing time in with my wife and wonder dog, Elmo.

I picked up a couple pounds of small, heads on, Canaveral shrimp from our local fishmonger and proceeded to some of our proven fishing spots.

As usual, I used my trusted top water plugs and jerk baits, but this evening I obviously wasn't holding my mouth right because the only fish I could dredge up was a medium sized ladyfish and one small trout that looked like he was starving to death.

My wife, on the other hand did quite well with a nice slot redfish that ate her shrimp and headed up river. The fish was gut hooked and even though we tried to release her unharmed, it wound up on the dinner table.

I didn't mind too much. I love blackened redfish.

Enjoy the pics, and here's hoping for a better Saturday evening trip.

Tight Lines!

Gator Trout Evening

After a pleasant day of fishing with my wife, she wanted to have "one last cast"; so I decided to free line a live croaker that I had netted earlier in another section of the river in a narrow marsh canal that nobody ever fishes.

My wife had caught some trout earlier and just at dusk, when I was ready to call it a day, I hooked up to what I thought was a large redfish in about a foot of water.

The fish literally inhaled the croaker when it hit.

The small canal adjacent to the river was very narrow and shallow, which kept the trout from putting up much of a fight.

The fish flopped around more than anything, with no room to run anywhere in the narrow canal but despite the lack of a fight, it was still an exciting catch.

Although Gator Trout are more and more common in this area since the net ban; they are still a prized commodity.

After bringing it home for dinner; the fish measured in at more than 27 inches.

I didn't have a scale but the girth was 13" at the widest point. You figure out the weight..... It was a rough day with the cast net as you can see by my pic.

Gator sea trout this time of the year are hard to catch in very shallow water but today luck was with me.

Till next time,
Tight Lines.