You Gotta Love February Sea Trout Fishing

You gotta love February Sea Trout fishing in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. 

When I got home this past weekend, Karen and I took the dogs for a spin around Peacocks Pocket Road to see if anything was in the area.

It was just prior to the cold front and although the air temperature was dropping, it was a pleasant day for fishing in the salt marsh.

We loaded Elmo and Odie into the truck and as an afterthought I brought along a couple of spinning rods, just in case.

The grass along the road was mowed and although we saw several groups of bank fishermen trying their luck, the ones we spoke with didn't seem to be having much luck.

Almost everyone was using shrimp or cut baits, but catfish and rays seemed to be the only catch.

As we slowly drove along Peacocks Pocket Road, I spotted several large redfish cruising the marsh canals moving from pond to pond.  I tried a couple of casts with a topwater bait and had a follow up by one oversize red but other than that, I never had a bite.

The water was flat with little to no wind on the marsh side of the road and the water level was still quite high.  Perfect conditions for marauding sea trout in the shallows.

I spotted several large sea trout that were just within casting range, but I didn't bother trying to cast to them.  Instead, I made a mental note to try the area after the front moved past the area.

We spotted some early spoonbills wading in the area, and there were several people enjoying the waterfowl around the road as we drove to the boat launch.

As we drove past the Ferris wheel and other rides at the fair, it was evident that the cold front was already here.  The windows were down and it was downright chilly.

When we got to the house, I checked my emails and got this fishing report from a fishing buddy of mine who also travels a lot.

Craig and Mary sent me these pics of the fish they caught these past weeks in the Mosquito Lagoon during cold weather conditions.  As ;you can see, the sea trout are quality fish.

Jan. 16th. 

" I had a jerk bait and Mary had a Kietech. Her 2nd cast she hammers a 26” trout. 2^nd cast!

            

She stuck with the Kietech and caught a 24” trout and 23” red.

           

I caught a few small reds and trout but that’s it.   Just shakers."

Jan.31st.

"We go back to the same area. Mary had shown her 26” trout pictures off to a girlfriend of hers.

Maggie has her nephew down from Connecticut for the weekend so she rents a 2 seater kayak in mims and joins us for the day.

As Maggie and Cody were new to this stuff we picked up a couple dozen shrimp.

The weather was cooler than our previous trip.   Fish were very inactive.

I had Cody with me and got him hooked up with a nice slot Red.

We kept after it and I got a bite that knocked slack in my line but didn’t stick.

Meanwhile out on the point Mary and Maggie were drifting shrimp.

I hear Mary calling for the net.   We paddled over and she has a 8# 27 inch Gator Trout.

            

A short time later she hooks a second one but it bites off the 15# leader.

I had a nice outing paddling the canoe about but I sure didn’t catch any fish."

Feb. 6th.

"Fished the same place.  Again the temps are low. We take out time getting over to the coast so the temps can rise a bit.

            

We know it’s gonna rain in the afternoon. We get to the launch about 09:00 after picking up a couple dozen shrimp.

            

Were thinking the bait bite’s gonna be the deal. Again we fish our way in. Soaking some nice big shrimp under popping corks.

            

We go a couple hours without a bite.

            

We end up in one of our favorite spots that almost always produce. Nothing on Shrimp!

            

I’m getting squirley by this time so I start rigging up a second rod with a weedless swim bait.   I tie on a 5” Bitters swimmer in Phantom.  Then I added a 2^nd bait behind that on a whim.   A 4” Strike King caffiene shad in Pearl White.

 

Mary was laughing at me.  On the 2^nd cast in the spot where we were popping shrimp, BAM! 24” trout eats the trailer! Awesome!!!

            

I love it when a plan comes together. We fished another hour until the wind picked up and the rains came.

            

We got a couple more small trout on the shrimp and short Red on the Phantom.

            

It was a cold wet paddle back into the wind to get out. But after taking a beating the 2 previous trips I was happy to finally lad a keeper.

           

And you know the ball game on Sunday was pretty good too!"

I always appreciate information about the fishing conditions in our area, and will always withhold where the fish are caught unless requested otherwise.

Thanks Craig and Mary!

Hope to get out Sunday afternoon if the weather permits.

Till next time, Tight Lines.

Jumping Redfish In The Marsh

When I decided to hit the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge to wet a line this evening, jumping redfish in the marsh was the last thing I expected to see.

In all my years of fishing I never had a redfish actually jump out of the water, but this evening at around 8:15 pm, that's exactly what happened as I was leaving the refuge.

I didn't get on the water until around 6:30 pm this afternoon and I didn't have high expectations of catching anything.  The truth is that I was getting flustered trying to fix a Windows XP operating system problem on my wife's computer and I needed some fresh air to clear my head.

Anyway, I loaded four rods into the back of the truck and headed to East Gator Creek road to check out the possibilities.

Although the water was up from the incessant rains this past week and the culverts were open, no fish were hitting in these areas.  At least they weren't hitting what I was offering.

Since it was late, I headed past some of my usual spots in favor of fishing a couple of marsh ponds with top water baits.

I did stop at two deep water spots in the marsh canal to fish a Creme Paddletail bait and got a strike at the second location, but I didn't get a hookup.

The grass along side of Peacocks Pocket road is so high, I probably could not have landed the fish up the bank anyway.

When I finally got to the large marsh pond that I wanted to fish, there was absolutely no surface activity.

The water surface had a slight chop and there was a mild breeze blowing.  The air temperature was 87 degrees and slowly dropping.

I decided to toss a gold Johnson Sprite spoon around but after numerous casts without any action, I switched to this speckled trout pattern Rapala Skitter Walk.

I started fan casting the area trying to evade the gators that kept following my bait and after a half hour I was about to give up on the lure, but as I was "walking the dog" past a submerged grassy island, a sea trout of at least 30 inches busted on the bait and started peeling off drag.

The big sea trout made three nice runs and as I was trying to lead the fish towards an open spot at the bank, the treble hook pulled out of it's mouth.  I could see where the hook wore a hole in the side of the fish's mouth as it shook off the Skitter Walk.

The grassy bank did it to me again.

I smeared on some more Pro-Cure Inshore Formula and continued walking up the road fan casting to likely looking spots.

This particular area didn't produce any more hits so I moved up to another area where some friends of mine caught a huge gator sea trout last year.

I pulled up to a spot where I could cast without getting tied up in the tall grass and started "walking the dog" with the top water bait.

It took four casts before a redfish hit the Skitter Walk and jumped about three feet into the air.  The fish was well over the slot and came straight out of the water like a shuttle launch when it felt the hook.

In all my years of fishing I have never seen a redfish jump like that.  They always put up a bulldog battle with long runs, but this one was acting like a freshwater Black Bass.

Anyway as the fish started it's run up the marsh canal, the line went slack and the hooks apparently pulled out.

That was the second nice fish of the day that I lost and it was to be my last.

It was getting dark and I was getting tired of being eaten by the bugs so I headed home.

When I got to the house and rinsed off my rods I discovered why the fish kept getting off this particular rig.

I was using 8 pound Cajun Red line with a 12 pound fluorocarbon leader on a 7 1/2 foot medium weight rod and the hooks on the Skitter Walk were not all as sharp as they should have been.

Apparently the jumping redfish in the marsh was never hooked deep enough to enable me to land it.

Fishing a bait with dull hooks on a medium action rod and light line apparently wasn't enough to set the hooks properly.  Anyway, the hooks are being sharpened as I am making this post.

Another Beautiful Sunset

Till next time, Tight Lines.

Fishing In The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Fishing in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge can be extremely productive if you know what you're doing and have a little bit of luck on your side.

Jason Cooper, a fellow angler that I happened to run into this weekend in the refuge sent me some pics of his catches that he recently made so I thought I'd post them for your enjoyment.

This one was caught on 9/14/2013 in the north end of the Indian River on a large finger mullet.

The sea trout below was caught along Peacocks Pocket road on the marsh side last week.

This red was caught on a chunk of ladyfish last Friday.

The two reds below were caught off Bio Lab road in the Mosquito Lagoon on live mullet. 

This is one area I love to wade fish with top water plugs and weedless gold spoons.

The grass flats off Bio Lab road are pretty much under fished and are loaded with sea trout, redfish,  jacks, black drum and big sheepshead.  

 

And finally another Peacocks Pocket redfish caught on live bait in one of the  areas that I often fish.

Fishing in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge can be an extremely "iffy" proposition, but if you have the patience and a little bit of luck,  you too can catch fish like these.

By the way, Jason and I both practice "catch and release".  Almost all of the fish pictured were oversize and all were released to fight another day.

Fishing in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge can be productive throughout the entire year.

Thanks Jason and till next time, Tight Lines to you all.

Fishing In The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge,

Late this afternoon my wife and I decided to see if the NASA folks still had the barriers up in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

The shuttle launch has been rescheduled again until the 16th. so we decided to give the area a "shot".

It was late so we packed up the minimum of tackle and headed for Peacocks Pocket road to see if anything was happening.

The barriers were down so took the first open entrance.

As we stopped by one of my favorite trout fishing areas, we saw one of the wild boars that frequent the swamp in this area. He was walking around the opposite side of a salt water pond looking as if he didn't have a care in the world.

I took these pics and headed to another area to catch some trout for dinner.

We passed a half dozen gators before settling on a stretch that we usually have good luck with.

My wife Karen was fishing with frozen jumbo shrimp and I decided on a green DOA jig head and a green 4 " Strike King jerk bait in the stinger end to start with.

Even though we were fishing late in the afternoon, it had been raining in the area sporadically throughout the day and the fish didn't appear to be very active. We didn't even get to the area until about 7:00 p.m.

Walking the bank and fishing both sides of the unimproved road, I had hits from 6 sea trout using the jerk bait.

I couldn't hook a fish to save my life so I baited up a second rod with a dead shrimp and tossed it close to the opposite bank to see if I could pick up a redfish.

I switched baits and moved to a top water plug. I managed to attract a couple of half hearted smacks from small trout with the plug but again couldn't hook anything.

I was about to pull up stakes and move up the road when my other rod started bouncing up and down.

I set the hook and after a short fight landed a slot sized "rat" redfish that I took pics of and returned to grow up.

I was hoping for some top water trout action which is normally quite good this time of year, but I just couldn't hook any fish.

This large gator was sunning itself but slowly moved into the stretch of water we were fishing, so Karen and I decided to call it a day.

The mosquitoes were bad enough, but a 9 foot gator trying to sneak up on you when you're trying to land a fish is something I choose to avoid.

Anyway, I've got a pallet of sod to lay tomorrow morning but if I can still hold a fishing rod afterwards, I'll be out here again trying my luck.

Till next time, Tight Lines.