Walking Peacocks Pocket Road

After trying several times to contact someone in authority at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, I decided to try walking Peacocks Pocket road to see if it was really as messed up as I had been told.

I put on my shorts and brought along two spinning rods tipped with a DOA Baitbuster and my top water bait of choice, a Chug Bug.

Since I planned on walking at least half way through Peacocks Pocket road, I didn't burden myself with a lot of excess gear.  I put a couple more Baitbusters in my pocket along with another Chug Bug and a weedless Johnsons silver spoon to cover the water column.

I parked at the barrier at the entrance to Catfish Creek Loop and started walking the unimproved road.

I was immediately surprised how low the water levels were in the marsh.

The small ponds I love to fish in the fall and early spring were now dark mud dotted with bird and gator tracks.

The water in the marsh canal along the road was at least two or more feet lower than what is expected for this time of the year.  Either the management people were draining the "swamp", or there was a hell of a lot of evaporation going on.

As I walked along the first stretch, I spotted a couple of sea trout chasing bait fish in the canal and came up on a huge gator sunning itself on the bank. 

 As I was taking it's pic, the gator slithered into the water looking right at me.

I took a short video and moved on up the road looking for signs of fish.

About a mile up the road, past areas where there used to be good ponds to fish, I finally spotted an oversize redfish busting baitfish along the bank.

I fired the DOA Baitbuster to it but the fish spooked and continued up the canal.

All along the walk, I took pics of the areas where I used to catch some very nice fish but today, things had changed.

The fish were all concentrated in the deeper areas of the canal, but they were super spooky.

I managed to catch a couple of sea trout that were right on the slot and I spooked a couple more oversize redfish before deciding to turn around.  It was getting late and I didn't want to kill myself walking back to the truck before dusk.

Although I had walked at least half way up Peacocks Pocket Road, I still didn't come across any areas that would have prevented the normal flow of vehicle traffic.

I spotted a ton of wildlife that included gators, pelicans, roseatte spoonbills, a variety of herons and even a couple of wood storks but the best part of the journey was the complete absence of vehicle traffic.

I was literally the only human being walking the area and it was wonderful.

On the way back to the truck, I jumped a small group of drum that were pushing water down the canal and as I got to the truck, I was treated to a nice sunset.

I plan to be walking Peacocks Pocket road again this week from the other entrance to see exactly where all the damage to the road is.

Till my next report, Tight Lines.

Walking Peacocks Pocket Road

Walking Peacocks Pocket Road seemed like a good idea this afternoon when I finally decided to get in some much needed fishing time.

Since there was only about an hour of daylight left before the sunset, I only packed one rod before leaving the house, and that one happened to be tipped with a Johnsons Sprite gold spoon.

The weather this afternoon was chilly but perfect for fishing.  The air temperature was in the 60s and there was almost no wind blowing across the water.

The sunlight was not hampered by any cloud cover and there were a lot of other visitors in the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge taking pictures of the wildlife and trying to catch fish.

I pulled up to the wire rope barrier that crossed the unimproved road to Peacocks Pocket and parked my truck.

I put on my Frog Togs "hoodie" and pocketed a couple of spare lures just in case the gold spoon I was using got broken off or hung on an underwater stickup.

The first culvert at the barrier was open and since there was a strong flow of water, I decided to try a couple of casts.

On my third cast a small redfish nailed the spoon but did not get hooked.  I saw the brief flash of bronze color as the fish hit the lure and the wake as it left the shallow area.

Undaunted, I continued fan casting and after a few more casts hooked up with this sea trout.

 The fish grabbed the gold spoon about three feet away from the culvert and took off like a shot.

After landing the fish and taking a pic it was released to fight another day.

The commotion apparently put down the fish so I started walking up the road and making random casts into the marsh canal.

In the short time available to me, I managed to release two more sea trout about the same size as the first one I landed and missed another larger redfish that for some reason did not get hooked.

Walking Peacocks Pocket Road proved to be great mental therapy.  There was nobody around except for a couple of alligators, some "puddle ducks" and a Kingfisher that kept raising hell with me for some unknown reason.

As the sunset arrived, I took a few pics of the beautiful scenery and started walking back to the truck
. 

As I drove out of the refuge, I decided to stop by the fishing piers to see how well the sport shrimpers were doing.

As I drove into a parking spot the band was playing and there were a lot of people on both fishing piers.  Some were fishing, others were shrimping and many people were just walking around like myself, looking.

I didn't spend much time talking to everybody but the no one seemed to be bragging about a full bucket.   A couple of the guys said the shrimp were big (meaning jumbos) but there weren't many of them. 

After surveying several buckets and walking around for awhile, I wholeheartedly agreed with them.

Till next time, Tight Lines.