Indian River Fishing - Fishing The Mud Bottom Shallows

February is a good month for Indian River Fishing, especially when fishing the the mud bottom shallows on the northeast portion of the river.

This weekend was the first really warm weekend in a long time that my wife, my wonder dog Elmo, and I got to enjoy fishing both the lagoons without taking a chance of contracting a case of pneumonia.

The fish are cruising the shallows over mud bottom areas around the Merritt Island National Wildlife refuge, and they are very spooky.

If you care to wade these areas and are careful about not making too much commotion; you can pick up slot sized redfish in singles and small schools using fresh cut bait, live shrimp, and slow moving soft baits.

I watched one wade fishermen catch a nice sized black drum on a white CAL bait wading north of Peacock Pocket, and just south of Catfish Creek. A couple other fishermen, not so interested in getting their feet wet, picked up slot redfish in the same area.

I was targeting sea trout for a friend of mine who wanted the fish and didn't fare so well. I picked up a couple of undersized fish on a natural colored Creme paddle tail bait, along with on legal fish of about 17" that I didn't bother keeping.

The trout weren't biting in their normal haunts for this time of year, which I believe is partially due to the recent cold snap fish kill. Last year, I was picking up good numbers of sea trout and even a couple of snook during this time period.

I predict when the water warms up a bit, the fish will move back into their old hunting grounds.

Towards evening I started targeting redfish that were cruising the mud bottom shallows. I tried gold spoons, a new Rapala "twitch" bait, and the usual array of soft bodied baits. I missed one slot redfish on a DOA CAL white paddletail swimbait and spooked two others because of badly placed casts.

On the way out of our fishing area, we found the road closed at the causeway bridge and had to get home via the long route over Haulover canal. Thank the Lord that the new bridge construction and fishing pier construction seems to be going full speed ahead. It seems like the every other week they can't get the turnstyle bridge to close and they have to redirect traffic.

Well, we hope to get out Sunday providing the bridge is open. Perhaps I'll have a better report.

In the meantime, enjoy the pics.

By the way, I have absolutely no idea why the house was being pushed down the ICW. If anyone knows about this please post a comment, I'd love to know.

Meanwhile, Tight Lines To All!

Indian River Fishing - Fishing The Mud Bottom Shallows

Fishing this time of year can be absolutely fantastic if you when and where to fish.

Is this a learning moment?  I certainly hope not.  This time of year, with the sudden drop in air and water temperatures, the fish can usually be found in very shallow water, over dark mud or sediment bottoms.

Although in the Mosquito Lagoon, the redfish start bunching into small schools;  the North Indian River fishing is a bit different.

Here we find the redfish in small pods or feeding alone over the dark mud bottoms on small  crustaceans and the occasional baitfish.

Monday afternoon, my wife and I , and of course our wonder dog Elmo, again tried the Merritt Island National Wildlife refuge around Gator Creek,  and eventually towards the Peacock Pocket shallow canoe launch.,

The conditions were absolutely gorgeous and the water on the river was calm as glass, especially towards dusk.

My wife fished dead shrimp and I decided on spoons to cover more water and try to locate any stragglers.

I chose a Bagley gold hammered spoon with a red tag, that is much thinner than the Johnson gold spoon I often use in deeper water.

The 3" spoons can be fished in 6" of water or less, without hitting bottom if you know how to fish them.  The trick is to start retrieving before the spoon hits the water, in order  to take out the slack, and then  fishing it as slow as possible using a steady short pumping action.

I spotted several good sized wakes and saw a few tails before getting my first redfish.  The fish are extremely spooky during this time of  the year because of the crystal clear water conditions.  You have to drop your spoon, or whatever lure you happen to be using, into the water gently, without "plopping" it, and scaring the devil out ot the fish.

I had a couple of bad presentatioins before I finally made a textbook presentation and hooked up with a 28" oversize redfish.

I cast well in front of, and past the redfish, and as slowly as possible pulled the gold spoon near the feeding fish.

The fish was hungry, and inhaled the spoon almost immediately.  The dead calm water was broken by the fighting fish, and the scene would have provided a superb video, but my wife was 50 yards down the road doing her thing close to   the truck and my Nikon.

After several nice runs, I finally pulled the red from the cold shallow water, got my wife to take a picture, and returned the fish to it's home in the river.  The water where I caught this redfish, and missed two more, was not more than 6" deep.

Here are some pics of the area and the fish for your viewing.

Till next time, Tight Lines To All!