By Captain Tom Van Horn
Upcoming Classes, Seminars and Events
Saturday August 7th 9 a. m. to noon at Mosquito Creek Outdoors, 170 S. Washington Ave. in Apopka Florida. Free seminar on "Snook Fishing Tactics" instructed by Captains Chris Myers and Tom Van Horn. Special guest instructor Steve Chapman from Fishing Florida Radio. Come learn the secrets to catching snook, and become a more successful angler.
First half hour is basic instruction and after the class is open forum.
This Week's Report
Like most of the country, the weather this week on the Indian River Lagoon Coast was extremely hot with heat indexes reaching the 110 degree mark by mid afternoon on most days. Although it was hot at the mid day, fishing very early in the morning and late in the afternoon both produced good catches this week.
My first adventure was in the near-shore waters out of Port Canaveral with Bob and Mary Lynne from up-state New York. I arrived at the dock at 5 a.m., early as usual, and I hooked a nice snook from the dock while waiting for my clients to arrive. The water temperature in the Port was 81 degrees, and we opted to head south in search of live bait (pogies). As we headed south, the water temperature kept dropping and by the time we reached Patrick AFB, it was 76 degrees. The bait was spread out, so we kept heading south and finally located and caught bait south of Patrick.
With water temperatures in the 70's, I knew we would have to locate warmer water if we were going to catch fish, so I decided to make the 20 mile run to 8A reef. During the mid summer on the Lagoon Coast of Florida, cold water upwelling's associated with the Coriolis Effect move into the shallow coastal waters shutting down the bite in a matter of days. When this phenomenon occurs, finding warm water is the key to catching fish. This same effect is also responsible for draining the lagoons and contributing to the extremely low water levels we are now experiencing.
I knew from what I was seeing, that we were going to have a tough day, but the fish gods were smiling on us as we located a heave concentration of nice kingfish, and in the last 45 minutes of the charter, Bob and Mary Lynne boated 8 kingfish, saving the day.
With the cold water moving in on the near-shore waters, I knew it was time to visit the lagoon and do some scouting for redfish, so on my next adventure I hooked up with my good friends Larry Carter and Jay Herrington. As stated earlier, we found the lagoon water levels very low. My goal was to locate schools of redfish, and maybe catch a few in the process, and as luck would have it, our first stop yielded three large redfish in the 30 pound range. These fish are under tremendous stress during the summer due to low oxygen in the water, hot water and angling pressure, so we opted to leave the school after boating and reviving three large fish.
For the remainder of the morning, we ran from spot to spot, and found decent groups of big fish in several different locations.
Jay's Monster From the MorningJay's Monster Redfish
Jay's Mega RedfishJay's Mega Redfish
Jay and Larry's with Larry's early morning redfish.Jay and Lary Carter 1
As always, if you need information or have any questions, please contact me.
Good luck and good fishing,
Captain Tom Van Horn
Mosquito Coast Fishing Charters
http://www.irl-fishing.com
407-416-1187 on the water
407-366-8085 land line
Visit Mosquito Creek Outdoors at www.mosquitocreek.com, it's where your adventure begins.
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