March Winds For Sea Trout

The March winds were blowing this afternoon making for some tough casting,  but March winds for sea trout can make for some of the best fishing of the year.

I didn't get out this afternoon until 5:30 pm and that was a spur of the moment thing.

I packed several spinning rods and decided to bring along the unused shrimp I unsuccessfully fished with yesterday, just in case I spotted some tailing reds or black drum.

I was fishing Peacocks Pocket Road primarily on the marsh side.  The Indian River side of the road was too windy for me to bother with.

The air temperature was 78 degrees when I left the house and there was a steady wind blowing out of the south making for some great wind surfing.  I picked up on this as soon as I hit the top of the bridge and saw all the multicolored para-sails.

There were tons of people taking advantage of the March winds on their boards and a few more trying their luck on the leeward side of the causeway.

 

I started fishing with a Berkley paddle tail swimbait smeared up with some Pro-Cure scent.

The wind made it hard to detect a bite and I missed at least a half dozen fish before I finally landed a nice fat 16" sea trout. 

I was going to take the fish home for dinner but I decided to release it instead.

The stretch of the canal that I had been fishing provided me with three more sea trout of the same general size before the bite slowed down and I decided to move on up the road.

I had hits at almost every stop I made, but the wind made it tough to get hook ups. 

I lost three more fish before I picked up the last sea trout of the day.  The fish was just under size, so I released it along with the other fish I caught this afternoon.

There were tons of waterfowl in the refuge this evening along with a lot of visitors watching them.

I saw only two other guys fishing with finger mullet on the river side this afternoon, but I didn't bother asking them if they had any luck.  They were busy cutting up a mullet for bait when I passed them.

As I got close to Bobcat Bay, I tossed the swimbait out on the river side to a swirl I happened to see and promptly got a hookup with a small snook. 

The little snook jumped twice before tossing the bait back to me.

Although I stopped at a couple more spots on the way out of the refuge, the small snook was the last fish of the day.

I flipped out the fresh dead shrimp at two small pond areas today, but never got a hit on them. 

Today plastic baits were the ticket.

As I headed back to the house, I took several pics of the waterfowl.

This guy eyeballed me to death, so I had to get his pic.

Fishing the March winds for sea trout can be productive but you almost need a sixth sense to detect a strike when fishing with artificial baits. 

Till next time, Tight Lines.

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March Wind Blows In The Refuge

Well the March wind was blowing in the refuge this afternoon as can be expected for this time of the year.

I didn't get a chance to wet a line this weekend although I did have good intentions however, after talking to a friend of mine today who fishes the refuge on a regular basis; it seems I didn't miss much.

I Started out today relatively early.  I left the house at around 2:00 pm and drove into the first entrance to the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge at around 2:20 pm.

As I crossed the bridge on the Indian River it was evident that fishing today was going to be a challenge.

There were a lot of para-sails on the water and the wind was blowing moderately heavy out of the northeast at around 10 to 15 mph.

The temperature was in the low 70s and dropped throughout the afternoon to the mid 60s.

I brought along five spinning rods each rigged with different lures and I wound up using every one of them.

Casting was difficult even in sheltered areas.  The wind gusts always seem to perk up when you try to make a strategic cast and I lost a couple of gold Johnson spoons and a bass patterned Chug Bug. to the opposite banks of the marsh canal.

I only spotted four redfish today and none of them were interested in anything I was casting.

I started out using a little Gabbies soft bait and after a half hour of fruitless casting switched to a Johnson Sprite gold spoon.

That didn't pan out so well so I switched to a Creme paddle tail swim-bait and finally settled on the baby bass pattern Chug Bug until I lost it on a sea trout.

The only hits I could feel today were on the Gabbie and the Chug Bug and the only fish I landed was a nice 25" sea trout that clobbered the Chug Bug when I wasn't expecting it.

 
The fish hit as I was working the bait from a shallow pond into the deeper water of the marsh canal.

The only other hit I had was when a large sea trout nailed the Chug Bug and broke off taking the lure with it.

The weather was clear and the sun was up all the time I was on the water but the wind was a pain in the butt.

There were a ton of visitors in the refuge today mostly looking at the waterfowl and hoping to spot a gator or two.

One lady and her daughter asked me where the gators were hiding.  I told her to backtrack and look a little closer.  I counted five gators from where she was coming from.

Apparently she thought they would all be on the bank sunning.  Most of them today were in the water looking for dinner.

I got tired of getting beat up by the wind so I left for home early this afternoon.

As I was leaving the refuge, I was glad I didn't take out my Maverick flats boat this afternoon.  It would have been a waste of gas.  I'll wait till the March winds die down a bit.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.