Sat. May 26, 2013
Weather: 79 deg. at launch, Mostly clear
Wind: moderate southeast winds, 6-8 mph
Water: Water stained from runoff and muddy, light chop.
Target Fish:  Trout
Fish caught: (1) Ladyfish, (13)  Trout ,  (1) Mangrove Snapper

I went on a night op with my brother Darin last night to fish some dock lights in Ormond Beach. The night before he caught about 20 trout fishing a live shrimp under a cork.

It was a little windy to suite me but there was one pretty sunset going down.

We stopped at some open water structure to do some plugging. I was throwing one of my favorite search plugs……a ghost minnow. It is a shallow running lip bait and a suspending twitch. I think it’s really a fresh water plug but it has held up well in the saltwater. I have caught a pile of trout on this thing and you can cover water pretty quickly with it.

The first fish of the evening turned out to be a nice ladyfish that struck right at the boat…..so close that when I set the hook I skipped her right into the boat and out the other side.

It was about another 10 minutes before I caught the first trout but the bite turned on like you flipped a switch. I caught about 5 fish back to back, nearly every cast. Darin was fishing a live shrimp and caught a small mangrove snapper but couldn’t find a trout. Finally he tied on a blue/chrome lipped plug and managed to land two trout before the bite petered out.

It was getting dark so we headed off to fish some dock lights.

The bite was pretty slow under the docks we fished. We saw a few trout strike under the light but only managed to catch 5-6 in several hours of fishing. All of those took a like shrimp except one that I caught on the ghost minnow.

We called it off about midnight and headed for the launch.

The river seems to be full of trout right now. They are now large so down size your equipment. We only kept 4-5 of the 13-14 we caught.

Good Luck,

Larry S.

P.S. Here’s a short video of the trip……….

After the action he had last weekend at the lagoon, We couldn’t resist going back for more! We had a pretty good crew this morning and I was joined by Rick Edwards and Dr. Theodore DeRoche (TR). That was about all our little hot spot could support fishing.

Unfortunately, the wind was forecasted to be 10 mph at 6 am and building to 16 mph by noon. We decided to go ahead and chance it and hope against hope the the forecast would be wrong.

It wasn’t!

We caught some live bait in a little creek on the paddle in, mostly pin fish, a few mullet and misc. others. We fished a few spots quickly on the way but were anxious to get to the honey hole.

Unlike last weekend, when we arrived at the spot we found the water to be pretty dirty and had to set up differently due to the wind direction. I expect the stained water was from the brown tide that has been an issue for the area.

I had a not so good feeling about reproducing the results of last weekend and that would turn out to be right. As a matter of fact, it got so slow about mid morning that two of our party actually dozed off.

Most of the fish were caught later up in the morning.

We caught a total or (4) mid slot redfish and one small lady fish all morning. The three reds I caught were on live pin fish and mullet and Rick caught his on a Gulp shrimp again. I had (2) others on but only briefly.  The finger mullet were a little larger than I prefer, about 5″. One fish I lost probably just hadn’t gotten the whole mullet in his mouth when I set the hook. I think Rick missed one as well. TR on the other hand was having a real off day and did not manage a strike. The conditions were difficult with the chop, making it difficult to see the sandy area.  Having fished it last weekend we did have an advantage  over TR.

On the plus side, all the redfish were quality mid-slot fish and all gave our line a good stretch.

We fought it all morning and decided at noon that we had best start the dreaded paddle back which would be a mile and a quarter straight into a 15+ mph wind! It was no fun but we made it…just a little wetter than we started out.

Here are some more pics from the Trip:

Sat. May 18, 2013

Weather: 68 deg. at launch, 85 at landing Mostly clear to partly cloudy later in the day

wind: light east winds, 8-10mph +/- at noon

Target Fish: Redfish, Trout

Fish caught: (2) Trout- short, (13-14)  Redfish -upper slot

I have been looking forward to Saturday all week. I had found a new fishing spot at the Lagoon that looked extremely promising and my feeling was that it was going to be an outstanding day! The weather was cooperating and we had a very light breeze out of the east. At times, early, the flats were like a sheet of glass.

I fished with my friend Rick Edwards this morning.  We paddled over a mile and a quarter to get to a big grass flat that turned out to be basically dead! It was really skinny and the sand holes were not clean….they had a skim of dead grass or some kind of fungus that is growing on the grass there, covering the bottom. We paddled all the way to the far end and it was all the same. The worst part was that there was no bait and we did not even jump a red in all our travels there.

We tried to access another large flat through a maze of mosquito ditches only to end up in a ditch that was choked with mangroves that prevented passage. We had to back track and find another way in. This small shallow creek had a deep hole in a bend that we netted  some finger mullet, pin fish, menhaden and a small bait that I could not ID.

We had to drag the boats over a sand bar to get into the big flat but it would turn out to be worth the effort! My fishing partner Rick had never fished grass flats like this so he was depending on me to put us on the fish.

That’s a Redfish tail in the upper left corner of the picture

After another quarter mile of paddling, I found them! A pocket of tailing Reds. There were no sand holes to fish to speak of, the fish were just rooting in the grass. I waved Rick over and we went to work. In short order I had a 20″ fish yak side but all the comotion put the school on edge and the tailing ended after another 15 minutes or so.

We moved on in search of more action. From my research for this trip, I knew there were some big sand holes on the other side of a big island from us and I headed us that direction.

The sun was high in the sky and the sandy locations were pretty easy to spot. It was probably 10:30 AM at that point.

We eased up to within casting distance and I lobbed a 4 1/2″ finger mullet into the middle of the hole. The next thing I know he is showing signs of wanting back out of the water……My line starts to come tight and I set the hook. My reel immediately started to give up line at a rapid rate and I had to jamb my paddle into the bottom to keep the big red from draging me into the hole we were fishing.

It was time to finally kick some redfish butt!

We were just finishing up taking pictures of my fish when a series of aggressive strikes in the sand hole grabbed our attention…..”THROUGH YOUR TOP WATER AT HIM RICKY!” If you have never seen an aggressive fish striking a top water lure you are missing out on one of the most exciting aspects of fishing that there is to experience. This red struck at the lure four times before he hooked up. Ricky’s rod strained under the pull of the big Redfish. The drag of his reel screamed for relief but It was only a matter of time for the fish. After a number of screaming runs he was finally brought to hand. You should have seen the smile on that fisherman!

The action went on like this for several hours.  We caught them on everything we had top water, suspending twitch, live bait and gulp shrimp. I think the gulp in new penny caught as many as anything.  I we caught three doubles!

It was getting close to 1:00 and it was about time to start our journey back. I told Rick, lets make one more cast. 3-4 seconds after casting I see Rick set the hook and his rod double over. About 2 seconds later my last pin fish gets hammered and the battle was on. What a way to top off a fantastic day on the water.

We caught 13-14 upper slot reds and 2 short trout. All of the fish except the small trout were really quality fish.

The morning started off really slow with a lot of paddling and no fish. By mid-morning Rick had pretty much lost faith and was ready to head for the hill. HE’S A TRUE BELIEVER NOW!

Those redfish haven’t seen the last of us!

Best of luck,

Larry S.

Here’s some photo’s from the trip.