Catching Gators

Catching gators was the last thing I intended to do this afternoon but that's exactly what happened today when Odie and I went for a drive to scout out some of my favorite fishing spots.

It was well after noon when we left the house and the weather was just fantastic.  Very little wind, zero chance of rain, and a pleasant 74 degrees.

My plan was to drive over to Haulover Canal to check out the fishing and then heading out to Patillio Creek before heading back to the house.

Because Odie was with me, I really didn't plan on doing any serious fishing but as usual, I hade several rods with me in case I ran across some signs of fish.

As we crossed the bridge and Odie directed me into the entrance to Haulover Canal, I noticed several boats anchored at the mouth of the Mosquito Lagoon fishing the deep holes for reds and black drum.  

Several boats were anchored just off the bank with fishermen tossing lures and dunking baits, and a ton of people were fishing from the bank.   

A couple of kayak fishermen were also paddling along the bank of the canal getting in the way of the bank anglers.

We drove past the people fishing along the bank towards the turn around where the kayak rentals were located and found more fishermen trying their luck at the mouth of the Indian River.

I found that most of the anglers fishing from the bank were using dead shrimp for bait and were catching some Mangrove Snapper and a few black drum.

I located a spot near the bridge and let Odie out to do his business while I tossed a gold Johnson Sprite spoon around for awhile. 

I never got a hit but I did see some baitfish in the canal getting busted on by diving pelicans, so the fish had to be there.

After a few minutes, I loaded up Odie and we headed towards Patillio Creek.

We drove around several areas and found a few fishermen dunking shrimp trying for black drum before heading out to north Shiloh Road.

It was late when we got to the first set of culverts.  The water was dead calm and there was no sign of any topwater activity, so I decided to toss around a gold Johnson Sprite in the off chance I could pick up a redfish.

After several casts on both sides of the culvert, I had a bump on the spoon but missed the fish.  As  I was jumping the spoon off the bottom and letting it flutter back, I hooked up with what I thought was a snag.  

As I started pulling the spoon out of the "snag", it slowly started moving away from me in the narrow creek.

I thought I had a big red or a turtle on, but as I pulled the spoon closer, I was surprised to see that I had hooked a large gator.

The gator was apparently lethargic from the recent cold snap which made it relatively easy to gently pull it to the bank.  I could clearly see the lure hooked on it's back, so I skinned down the bank and after getting it closer, unhooked the gator.

I took several pics to show my wife before the gator slowly turned around and swam away.

I got back up the bank, loaded Odie up into the truck, and decided to head for the house.  I had enough fun for one day.

Till next time, Happy New Year & Tight Lines.

Tarpon In The Creeks

Late this afternoon I decided to get out to North Shiloh Road this afternoon to see if there were any tarpon in the creeks.

I brought along four rods tipped with topwater baits; a Johnson Sprite gold spoon, a Creme paddletail bait, a Badonk-A-Donk, and a SkitterWalk that I caught some nice sea trout on the other day.

There was almost no wind over the water when I started fishing and the air temperature was still around 93 degrees. 

When I pulled up to the culverts I spotted a couple of fish blasting baitfish along the shoreline so I grabbed a rod with the paddletail bait and started casting ahead of the marauding fish.

On the retrieve I immediately had a hit that I missed hooking up with so I continued fishing with the bait for a while.  After several more casts and three more misses, I switched over to the SkitterWalk and tried the other side of the culvert.

That bait proved to be worthless.  No bites or even a followup, so I switched rods again and after smearing the Johnson Sprite spoon up with some Pro-Cure, I resumed casting to the fish that were tearing up and down the bank.

On the third or fourth cast I had a hard bump on the spoon.  I knew it wasn't a redfish, or I would have had a hookup; so I continued casting.

Finally after casting ahead of another fish that was feeding along the bank, I hooked up to a tarpon that immediately jumped and broke off my spoon.

The fish was easily three feet long and would have weighed in at around 25 pounds, so I didn't feel too bad about losing the fish.

I didn't expect a juvenile tarpon that large to be in the shallow creek this time of the year.

I continued casting with another silver spoon that I juiced up with Pro-Cure, but I never got another hit.

My arm was getting tired from casting and a large green horsefly was feasting on my ankles so I decided to head for home and hit the area tomorrow.

Hopefully, the fish will be more eager to eat.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.

Tarpon Hunting On The Fly

Late Saturday afternoon I decided to go Tarpon hunting in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

I've been out of town for a few weeks and with another hurricane brewing in the Gulf, I decided to take advantage of the high water levels, the Harvest Moon, and the barometer to get some much needed fishing in.

The last time I tried Tarpon hunting, conventional lures were pretty much useless, so this time I brought along my 8 wt fly rod and a few flies to augment the 7' spinning rod that I always carry in the truck.

As I crossed the A. Max Brewer Causeway bridge I was beginning to think I made a drastic mistake. There were tons of people on both sides of the causeway fishing and kite surfing.

Although the wind was brisk, the weather was gorgeous so I continued driving past the refuge entrance towards Bio Lab Road.

The barriers are still up on Gator Creek, East Gator Creek, Catfish Creek Loop, and Peacocks Pocket roads, and although you can still walk the areas, nobody had cars parked so I can only assume that nobody was bothering to walk the areas.

Too bad, there's some great fishing along most of the roads, especially when the water levels are up like they are right now.

Park your butt next to a flowing culvert and you usually have some good fishing in store.

I drove past Black Point Wildlife Drive towards Bio Lab road and was surprised at how many parked vehicles there were along the road.    Probably due to hunting season..

Anyway, the water levels in the Mosquito Lagoon were way up and because there were people fishing the creek at the Bio Lab boat launch,  I decided to head towards Patillo Creek to see if the barricades were still up there.

 

I noticed that Beacon 42 boat ramp road was still closed and when I made the left turn into Patillo Creek, it also was closed to vehicle traffic at the second entrance.

I stopped at the barrier, strung up my fly rod, tied on a black and white Lefty's Deceiver and headed towards the first set of culverts.

When I lived in Pennsylvania as a youth, I grew up with a fly rod in my hand and even though I'm out of practice and don't use a fly rod all that much in saltwater, I picked it up almost immediately.

My first cast into the area at the culvert hooked my up with an almost gator sea trout of about 25 to 27 inches. The fish hit the deceiver on the second or third strip and after a very brief run, broke off in the brush along the bank.

Lesson number 1. Use a heavy leader in salt water.

I made several more casts with another deceiver fly on both sides of the culvert but the fish weren't interested, so I headed back to the truck and decided to run towards North Shiloh Road.

As I drove up Shiloh Road, I spotted a group of fishermen about to leave the area I planned to fish.

When I asked them how they were doing, they said they hit a few small tarpon that would not take anything but a small original floating Rapala.    The one guy said he caught a tarpon in the 24 inch category and the other wasn't specific about the size.

When they saw me pull out my fly rod, they both said that the fish were hitting small minnows and that they wished they had brought along theirs.

After the group left, I started casting against the wind into the open culvert side where I expected the larger fish to be holding, but after making what seemed like a million casts, I never got a hit.

The other side of the culvert was where all the activity seemed to be.   There were dimples in the water with rolling tarpon all over the place and occasionally, a larger fish would blow up along the submerged banks to attack the baitfish that were holding there.

I spotted several redfish or snook wakes along the banks, but most of the fish in the area were Tarpon. Just what I was interested in.

I started pitching another deceiver pattern with a blue back and white feathers into the area and almost immediately had a juvenile tarpon hit the fly, jump, and break the fly off the leader.

I was silently cussing myself for not bringing along my GoPro.   It's impossible trying to get a video of jumping tarpon on a smart phone when you have a fly rod on one hand and the line in the other.

I tied on another streamer pattern that was in a redfish and speckled trout selection of saltwater flies from  Orvis and after several more casts suffered the same results.   A larger juvenile tarpon of around two feet jumped once and immediately broke off the fly.

During the course of the next hour and a half, I hooked six more juvenile tarpon which broke off after jumping or after making short runs, and had a slot size snook follow this white Conehead Bunny Muddler.

The snook followed the minnow imitation all the way up to the culvert but turned off twice. I guess it saw me?

Anyway, as it started getting toward dusk, I ran out of flies and decided to start pitching a Johnson's Sprite gold spoon that I had on my other rod.

I had two or three bumps on the spoon, but no solid hits.    I believe if I had a smaller sized spoon, I would have caught something, but the 3 1/2" gold spoon just didn't "match the hatch".

As the sun started to set, two guys on the way out asked me what I had caught.   I told them and they replied that they caught a tarpon of about 26" and a small snook, both on a fly.

The mosquitoes were finally driving me crazy, so I packed up, turned the truck around and headed home.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.