You Gotta Love October Redfish In The Marsh

You really gotta love fishing for October redfish in the marsh.

This afternoon my wife and I decided to take Elmo and Odie along with us for a ride to Burger King and to see if Peacocks Pocket road was open to vehicle traffic. 

Fishing the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is one of my favorite weekend activities and I try to hit the refuge at least one day every weekend.

I packed a few rods and after grabbing a bite to eat we headed for Peacocks Pocket road.

Gator Creek road was open but East Gator Creek road and Catfish Creek Loop were still barricaded for some reason.

We took the long route and entered Peacocks Pocket road from the easternmost entrance.

The air temperature was in the mid 80s early this afternoon, and there was a moderate wind blowing in the refuge.

Surprisingly, there was relatively little activity in the refuge.  We encountered only three other fishermen during our brief scouting trip.

We passed the shallow water kayak launch and just past the first set of culverts, Karen spotted some redfish tailing in a shallow pond.  There were at least five that we spotted and they all appeared to be oversize.

Here is a short video of the activity.



The fish were well out of casting range so I didn't bother trying to toss any lures around.

About half way down the road, we met up with Ron, a fellow angler I see almost every weekend.

He told me he caught a black drum on the Indian River side of the road on some shrimp.  I didn't want to bother his fishing so we continued down the road.

Karen got the bug when she saw the tailing reds, so we decided to head to the house and hit the area later in the afternoon.

We left the house around 3:30 pm, this time without Elmo and Odie.  I love them to death but they're a handful when we go fishing.

This time we entered Peacocks Pocket road from the first entrance and headed to a couple of spots I hadn't been able to fish during the closure.

As we entered the area, a fellow reader of this blog stopped and asked me if Karen and I wanted some live finger mullet.  I readily accepted and he gave us about half a dozen small mullet.  He introduced himself as James and said he didn't do too well fishing the area today.

I thanked him for the bait and we continued to the first area to fish.

When we got to our first spot, we didn't waste much time there.  I had a tap on a gold spoon and Karen didn't get a hit, so we moved on up the road.

The water on the marsh side of the road today was chocolate colored due to the brown algae bloom, so I decided to start using live bait instead of artificial lures.

The second spot we stopped to fish wasn't much better than the first area.  We wasted about an hour there before heading to another spot up the road where I often pick up some sea trout and reds.

We set out two rods with finger mullet, a third with fiddler crabs and Karen lobbed out a Cajun Thunder rig with some fresh dead shrimp we bought at the bait store.

It didn't take long before I hooked up with an oversize redfish.

The big red nailed the mullet and headed up and down the marsh canal for several nice runs before I could land the fish.

I asked Karen to take a video of the action as best she could.  Her results are below.


The fish measured in just at 35 inches with the tail pinched.

I released the fish and Karen immediately decided she wanted to switch to a live mullet. 

I baited her up and she flipped the bait out to the opposite bank.

It was another half hour or so before I got another hit and I lost the finger mullet to a large sea trout.  I'm not used to fishing live bait and I pulled the mullet out of the fish's mouth.

About the time I re-baited, Karen said she had a big fish on so I got the Boca Grip and camera from the truck to help her out and film the action.

This fish didn't want to be landed.  It took off up the marsh canal and put up a really good fight before finally giving it up.

Here is a video of the action along with some pics.



After Karen landed her big red, the wind started picking up and the sky darkened.  We fished a little longer and Karen and I both missed another fish before we decided to head for home.

You gotta love October redfish in the marsh!

Fishing The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Although Friday evening wasn't very productive, Saturday afternoon in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge proved to be a bit better.

My wife, Elmo and I headed out to the "swamp" as she calls it to fish for reds that are now prowling the shallows.

In the northern portions of the Indian River, there are 30 to 40 pound bull redfish being caught right now on cut bait, live pigfish, pinfish and finger mullet.

In the marsh canals, the reds prowl the shorelines looking for an easy meal and this is the area we targeted.

I picked up some jumbo head on shrimp from a local source for my wife to fish with and I decided to fish with a variety of lures.

We started at gator creek where on my first cast I spooked a large redfish in about 6" of water.

Several casts later I briefly hooked up with a medium sized sea trout on a Strike King rage tail lure hooked with a weighted jerk bait hook.

I picked and missed a few ladyfish on a new Bagley top water bait before moving on to the area where I caught some nice reds the week before.

The weather was beautiful and we spotted only one other person in the area who was taking advantage of the day taking pictures of the wildlife. He had Virginia tags on his car and was obviously having a great day.

We passed him up and parked at a spot I hoped would hold some reds. It was at a point near two small islands that sheltered the marsh canal from a shallow saltwater pond.

Karen pitched out her shrimp and I walked several yards down the road to fish another location that looked "fishy".

The fishing was slow but I did spot three redfish waking up the marsh canal. One briefly tapped my "Rage Tail" bait but didn't hook up.

Karen had a nice redfish on but it wrapped around a brush stickup and before I could get up the where she was fishing to help her out, the fish got off.

I gave up on my top water bait, changed rods and started fishing with my gold Bagley Red King spoon.

I had two good hits that were probably small trout and finally hooked up with a slot redfish shown below that I promptly returned.

Karen had another hit close to dusk but didn't get a hookup so we decided to call it a day.

Fishing the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is always interesting. We got to see this large "big bird" drying his wings and several alligators looking for dinner.

The scenery this afternoon was simply gorgeous, even with thunderstorms on the horizon and despite not getting the bull redfish we were looking for, it was a great outing.

Till next time, Tight Lines!

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!