St. Johns River Fishing Report 4-10

This Week's Report

In my last report, I informed you about the arrival of the cobia run off of the beaches of east Central Florida. Well, what do you do when you know the cobia are here, but Mother Nature interferes with high winds and a heavy sea state? The answer is you shift gears and target the St. Johns River freshwater cobia.

Cobia in the St. Johns River, you say. With the high winds, cloudy skies, and coastal showers experienced all last week blowing out any chances of fishing in the Atlantic, we modified our fishing strategy by targeted the spring spawning run of freshwater channel catfish on the St. Johns River. Fishing is fishing, so as long as I can find a jerk on the other end of the line, I'm happy.



Larry Carter with a 20 pound freshwater cobia.

Thankfully, we live in Central Florida where fishing opportunities abound, and as long as you are willing to be creative and flexible, you can always find something to pull line, and in the case of last week we did just that. Although cobia and channel catfish are not related, they do have similarities. They both are big and black, good table far, and they both are hard fighters and fun to catch.



Charlie McCullough with a fat St. Johns River channle catfish.Charlie McCullough with a respectable river cobia.

I fish the St. Johns River on two occasions last week, and on both trips we were rewarded with excellent catches of big catfish. Here in Central Florida, rising water levels in our freshwater rivers and creeks have the spawning catfish on the move. This spawning run also coincides with the arrival of the gizzard shad run and schooling largemouth bass bite. All of the catfish cleaned this week had gizzard shad in their stomachs. We also caught fish using fresh peeled shrimp fished on the bottom in areas of swift current.

Also, be sure to check out the April addition of Coastal Angler Magazine Orlando in print and online for free at www.coastalanglermagazine.com.

As always, if you need information or have any questions, please contact me.

Good luck and good fishing,

Captain Tom Van Horn
www.irl-fishing.com
mosquitocoast@cfl.rr.com
407-366-8085 office
407-416-1187 on the water


For all you outdoor shopping needs, visit Mosquito Creek Outdoors at www.mosquitocreek.com.