Wednesday, October 17, 2007

High Water Levels Make Fishing Tough

With the high water persisting, it has been another tough week of fishing in the Mosquito Lagoon. Anglers fishing the northern Indian River have been having some success but sight fishing has been difficult in all areas due to poor water clarity.Last Monday, I started off blind casting a flat that was covered with mullet in the Mosquito Lagoon. Within the first five casts, I landed a decent snook and a trout on a 5 inch DOA CAL in golden bream. Soon after, the action died. I searched several more places looking for redfish and caught one on a gold Baitbuster to complete the slam. I was less than impressed, however, with the amount of redfish I saw and decided to fish my charter the next day in the Indian River.Tuesday, Angelo, from Oregon, joined me and we started off fishing some small tarpon in the Indian River. We tried for several hours but only managed one bite and no hookups. Unable to find clean water, we fished a few areas with no success but finally managed to get four redfish to 30 inches.Wednesday, I decided to check out the action around Ponce Inlet with my friend Paul. We saw numerous large tarpon rolling around the bridges but only managed to catch ladyfish. We moved to the inlet hoping to land a few big redfish. The redfish bite was slow but we did catch jacks and bluefish before Paul landed the only redfish of the day, a fat 38 inch fish.Friday and Saturday, I guided in the Redbone Mosquito Lagoon Celebrity Fishing Tournament. My anglers were hall of fame baseball player Wade Boggs and local resident Joe from Merritt Island. The weather was perfect but the same could not be said for the fishing. We fished numerous spots throughout a twenty mile stretch of Mosquito Lagoon. We came across a couple schools of reds that did not eat and, after that, the redfish were few and far between. We did see a good number of large trout, throughout the day, and Wade landed one of 25 inches on a gold Baitbuster.We scored with a few more trout on Baitbusters and 5 inch CAL tails. On day two, we went deep into the back country of the Lagoon hoping to find the missing redfish. They caught four redfish and a few more got away and also landed a few more decent trout. Although we did not win the tournament, we certainly enjoyed some of the best weather in quite some time.After informing my Sunday clients of the poor fishing, they decided they wanted to give it a try anyway. I took Jason and Kevin to a tarpon spot and we watched them roll around us for several hours but could not get them to eat. We moved out to a flat in the Indian River where Kevin Caught his first seatrout and Jason landed one of the biggest bluefish I have ever seen in that part of the Indian River. We had a long rough ride over to the Mosquito Lagoon where we hoped to find some reds. Kevin caught another trout but the reds did not cooperate. We had two reds over 35 inches swim right past our baits totally ignoring them.Although the water level in the Lagoons is beginning to drop, it still has about another foot to go before it is back to the level we saw in August. Until then, it may be necessary to do quite a bit of searching to find the fish. Once you find the spot, use large jerk baits, spinnerbaits, or the shallow running Baitbuster for both redfish and trout. The inlets at Ponce, Sebastian, and even Port Canaveral, have been the best bet for catching large reds. Fish the outgoing tide for best results.
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Posted by Tony at 11:17 AM