Bio Lab Snook

I was planning to hit the beach this morning, but around 9:00 am, a Space X launch rumbled the house so I thought that it would be closed.

After mowing the lawn this morning and taking care of some chores, my wife asked me if I wanted to grab some fast food and take the boys for a ride in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge if it was open.

I was hungry and readily agreed; so we packed up Elmo and Odie and headed to Arby's for some grub.

With a bag of food in hand we headed for the closest spot where we could eat, which was Gator Creek.  

Gator creek was cordoned off, apparently because of work they were doing on the culverts, but East Gator Creek was open.  

We took the turn and were stopped briefly by a couple of guys who were pulling out their Gheenoe.  

When I asked if they had caught anything, the guy said they were fly fishing and caught no fish.  They told me that they spotted several black drum and a lone redfish but all the fish had lockjaw.

I wished them well and suggested that next time they should try the other side of the road where there were some nice sea trout, tarpon, and reds.

After we left them, we pulled over to enjoy our sandwiches and decided to head over to Bio Lab Road.

As we pulled into Bio Lab Road, I was surprised at how flat the water was on the Mosquito Lagoon and how many bank fishermen were along the road.

Karen said that it was probably because of the Christmas Holiday and I agreed.

We saw one little girl reeling in a small puppy drum and talked to several other bank fishermen who were using shrimp for bait that caught at least a couple of keeper drum.

I decided to head to the flats at Whale Tail to see if anyone was in that area.

We got to an area where I caught some snook a few weeks ago and although there were a couple of guys fishing with live bait in the area, decided to toss a topwater bait.  They weren't catching anything and warned us about a large alligator that was along the bank.

Karen immediately went after Odie and Elmo and put them in the truck to make sure they didn't become dinner for the gator.

I chose a rod that had a Badonk A Donk on and started casting along the mangrove roots.

On my first cast  I missed a fish that hit the bait as I was pulling it out of the water for another cast.

Several casts later I had a nice hit from a slot size snook and after a decent fight took a pic and released the fish.

I continued fishing and after 5 or 6 more casts into another area, got another hookup with a smaller snook that I also released.  

Karen took the pic below of the fish before I returned it.

I caught and released two more snook before a guy in a Kayak came into the area and put down the bite.

He was casting what looked like a white swimbait but he didn't seem to be having any luck.  Anyway, the fish stopped hitting my topwater bait so I took a couple of pics of the area before packing it in.

We left Bio Lab Road and exited via Playalinda Beach road to head back home.

Karen was getting tired and I was ready to call it a day.

Might get out tomorrow to hit the beach or try for some more snook.

Till next time,

Tight Lines. 

Whale Tail Flats

Around 4:00 pm this afternoon, Karen asked me if I wanted to take the "boys" fishing for a little bit, so I hurriedly packed several spinning rods in the truck along with a pack of frozen shrimp and headed to the Whale Tail flats in the Mosquito Lagoon off of Bio Lab Road to wet a line.

We saw several fishermen along BioLab road dunking shrimp and cut baits for redfish but the group I spoke with said they were only catching stingrays and catfish.

 I wished them well and drove to a spot we visited earlier along the southernmost banks of the lagoon.

I rigged Karen's rod with a popping float and split shot to keep her shrimp just off the bottom, and a second rod with a sliding sinker rig to hug bottom for redfish.

Karen took Odie with her to fish "her spot" while I rigged an XPS Slim Dog topwater bait to fish along the mangrove roots on both sides of the culverts.

The cold front was moving through the area and the air temperature dropped from 86 degrees F to 67 degrees F in the span of an hour or so.

I fan cast the area and had only one hit and two followups in an hour's time.

I spotted several families of Manatee moving into the area and finally stopped fishing to take some pics of the gentle animals.  

A family group moved right up to the culverts I was fishing and just stared at me, so I recorded this short video of the oglers.

The video ended with the manatees quickly disappearing when a large snook of about 30" spooked them.   I didn't know that Manatees could move that fast.

The snook was chasing baitfish right up to the deeper water around the culvert and hit one of the Manatees.  

About this time Karen walked back to the truck with Odie and told me that she lost two big fish in the mangrove roots along the bank.

She thought that the fish on the float was a large sea trout and the one on the bottom a redfish.

Regardless, the terminal tackle on both of her rods was gone and since it was almost 6:00 pm, we packed up our gear and headed to Playalinda Beach road to get out of the area before the refuge managers locked the barriers to the road.

They close BioLab and the beach at 6:00 pm, promptly.

We plan to get out again this week to catch what Karen lost in the mangrove roots.

Till next time,

Tight Lines