Another Windy Saturday Afternoon In The Swamp

Another windy Saturday afternoon in the swamp hunting for reds and sea trout.

This afternoon I didn't get a chance to hit the river until about 3:30 pm.

The air temperature was a pleasant  70 degrees and the wind was blowing enough to make casting a problem in most areas.

I packed up a few rods and decided to target sea trout in the swamp area of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

It would have been a stellar day to hit the Mosquito Lagoon flats but my boat and trailer is being worked on by the Float On manufacturer in Vero.

Driving into the refuge, I had to stop to take a few pics of the beautiful rosette spoonbills that were feeding in the area.

 The refuge is a great place for "birders" especially during the early months of spring.

Since I got a late start, I didn't bother to bring along my cast net and instead decided to fish spoons and paddle tail baits to cover more water.

I stopped by the first set of culverts going toward Peacocks Pocket road and tied on a Johnson Sprite gold spoon.

The first cast hooked me up with a juvenile sea trout that was just a tad bit bigger than my spoon.

Oh well, a fish is a fish!

I proceeded up Peacocks Pocket road to scout the area and for a while I thought that the small sea trout would be my only fish.

Since nothing was moving around much along the banks, I started blind casting with the gold spoon to several areas that looked promising.

At my third "honey hole" I finally hooked up with another under slot sea trout that I promptly released.

The wind wasn't letting up and it was hard to keep the spoon from skipping on the surface so I changed rods to start fishing a Fire Tiger pattern Bagley swim bait.

I had several more taps and missed several more sea trout before moving up to a spot where I knew harbored some nice redfish.

I switched back to the Johnson Sprite gold spoon and after several casts into a small pond area at a drop off, I got a good hit from another sea trout that acted a lot like a red.

This fish was a keeper and after a brief fight I put it in the cooler for dinner.

The wind was dying down a bit and a couple of oversize redfish were busting baits outside of casting distance so I decided to give it up for the afternoon and head for home.

The sun was beginning to set and it was getting chilly, so I took a few photographs of the sunset and packed it in for the day.

Although it was just another windy Saturday afternoon in the swamp, at least I didn't get skunked.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.