April 12, 2010 – Happy Days Are Here Again
The weather has improved steadily over the past several weeks and so has the fishing. With the warmer temperatures and more moderate winds, hungry gamefish have returned to the shallows in big numbers. Indeed, happy days are here again as evidenced by the following summaries from our most recent charters.
Art and his neighbor Al from Melbourne Beach fished last week with Capt. Roland in the Sebastian area of the Indian River. The morning started slow for the duo with strong northwest winds, but we stuck with the game plan. We finally got the winds to shift to the east and boy did the fish respond. In a 2 hour span we landed 12 trout from 22 to 28 inches. Pictured below is Art with his personal best trout of 28 inches followed by Al with another gator trout.
Capt. Peter was blessed with perfect weather on his charter with an old friend Bob and kayaking phenom and Olympian, Andrew. Taking advantage of the beautiful conditions, the day was spent poling around in the clear, shallow water and sight-fishing redfish. Among the many caught was the following being held by Andrew.
The next day was equally gorgeous weather-wise. There was a nice breeze coming off of the ocean, clear and calm water, and an almost cloudless sky. Capt. Peter reports the charter was split between fishing docks early, and then pushing a school of redfish later in the morning. We landed 19 redfish during this half day trip, with quite a few “tournament winners”, and some really nice “over-slot” fish – including the beauty pictured below.
Good Friday found Capt. Roland on the river again with Michael Cutbirth, his wife Michelle and their sons Josh age 7 and Jacob age 11 who was celebrating his birthday with the boys first ever fishing trip. The fishing was fantastic as we started catching redfish from the very first cast and it never stopped until we headed in. This group caught 20 reds and lost another handful as the fish were found under some docks and knew right where to go after being hooked. Jacob was heard to say "What a great Birthday". Pictured below are the boys with Roland during a double hook-up followed by Joshua with one of the many reds landed during the outing.
Ginna and Doug Edwards from Raleigh, North Carolina caught one of our less desirable days from a weather standpoint on their short visit to the Space Coast. The clouds were heavy and threatening while the winds blew a stiff 25 mph from the southeast. Another front was rapidly approaching from the north. However, Capt. Rocky and crew took advantage of the sheltered western shoreline of islands in the Grant area of the Indian River and found calm water and hungry gator trout. Doug and Ginna caught a half dozen big trout in an hour and half including the monster pictured below.
Mike and Michael Rimkus were joined by their good friend Alex from Denver on Sat. to fish with Capt. Roland in the grant area of the Indian River. The weather was gorgeous as Spring has finally arrived in full force with temps around 79 and light winds and sunny skies. The fishing was good with many hits but we just weren't hooking them good. That is until Alex got this monster 20 lb. redfish. Alex had quite a fight on his hands with the 10 lb line. The fish had almost emptied the reel of line before we finally gave chase with the trolling motor. After getting most of the line back, the fish wrapped the line around a clam lease pvc pipe full of sharp barnacles threatening to cut the line. We managed to unwrap the line and resume the fight for another 15 minutes. It was a great ending to a great charter.
The next day we took Mike's kids, Jenna 6 yrs old and Jacob 8 yrs old along with Alex's son, Trey 10 yrs old, with us for a kids day of fishing. With an approaching cold front on the way we decided to fish the canals of Honest Johns, just north of Sebastian Inlet. The bite was on as all the kids caught fish from sheephead, redfish, trout, snapper, and jacks. We boated 20 plus fish during the 4 hours and had smiles all around. Pictured below is our trio of kiddos with 1 of the many reds.
Another recent kids trip was guided by Capt. Peter and starred good friends Ed Wegerif, his son Luke, and his daughters Mulan, Jeili, and Anlu. They spent the morning near Cocoa Beach chasing schooling redfish. Even though they targeted just redfish, they varied their methods of fishing for them. They sight-fished the day away under mangroves, in potholes, and under docks. These great anglers landed around 20 reds, a couple of sheepshead, and a very nice trout…and dip-netted more jellyfish than anyone could count.
Native Sons Fishing Guides
Captain Rocky Van Hoose
321-986-9588
rvanhoose@cfl.rr.com
Captain Brad Jones
321-626-5072
jonesmelb7@bellsouth.net
Posted by Rocky Van Hoose on April 13, 2010 at 08:38:16 AM
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