Mosquito Lagoon Report 8-11-13

After getting some good reports of Tarpon at Playalinda beach we decided to head south and give it a try this morning.

The surf was reasonable but after checking all of the beach accesses we could not spot any bait or tarpon activity. The report I received was that the sharks were thick as flies and getting a bait to the tarpon was almost impossible. The water clarity has been exceptional and the report was that the tarpon could be seen hanging near the bottom. As soon as no sharks were visible you send a bait down as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, all of my sabiki jigs for catching bait were not in my offshore box? With no schooled pogies to snag a bait from and no jigs to hook and line any….we decide to go ahead and fish inshore. We ran back up to the north end of the lagoon. pretty much killed most of the morning but caught some pinfish, mullet and mud minnows for live bait.

I Talked to a guy at the launch that was waiting on his buddy….said he did not do to well this morning but had a really good day saturday. We ran into his buddy on the water and said he had a great morning caughing 7 redfish on a skitterwalk (top water). He also related that he had caught a 13lb trout on Saturday morning.

We caught a few ladyfish and catfish in a couple sand holes and started to head back towards the launch after about and hour and a half. I was paddling a Line where the grass turns to sand bottom that is 30-48″d. when I saw a slight indention in the grass line ahead with an extra white bottom. I casted a small live pin fish into it and let the kayak glide ahead. As I reeled up the slack I could feel something heavy on the live moving off. I let him pull the rod down and set the hook. The reel started screaming and the battle was on! When fishing in the flats you can get by with some pretty small equipment. I was fishing an Okuma Epixor 30A spinning reel loaded with 30# Power Pro. Not that I am a big fan of braid…..It is so limp it is just terrible about getting knots in it and they are difficult to get out most of the time.

Well, the fish turned out to be a nice 30″ redfish! After some give and take he finally succumbed.