Central Florida Fishing

The Proof is in the Pudding

2009-05-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Took my "new" 2004 20' deep vee Pro-line Sport out of Port Canaveral. A rough ride in 2-3 foot chop took myself, Steve, and John down to Pelican flats. Within 5 minutes of trolling, the downrigger got a 32" kingfish on a dead ballyhoo. 4.5 hours later, only one little bite on the plug, that let go immediately.

Finished the day off with some bottom fishing @ Pelican flats. John reeled a 3-4 foot eel-like thing up to the surface, and I had a reel nice fight with a big shark that let go of the rest of the Black Sea Bass i was reeling up.

Vero Reefs & Bethel Ledge - Take 2

2009-04-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

Same deal, lots of Black Sea Bass, some snappers, grunts, and this ugly bastard out at the ledge at Bethel Shoal. Identified it later as a Spotted Scorpionfish. Not deadly, but will put you in a world of hurt.

Vero Reefs & Bethel Ledge

2009-01-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

Went by myself in Steve's Sea Fox down to catch a lot of grunts and black sea bass down at the Vero Reefs. Went to Bethel Shoal and got a couple sharks.

Then went to the ledge off bethel and hit into a school of Trigger fish, landed about 6 or 7. Great fight, turns out although they are really tough on the outside, they are a highly prized food fish. Ah well, next time i'll keep one. Also got what I believe is my first Vermillion Snapper, correct me if i'm wrong.

Stick Marsh in Jan

2009-01-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

Took Shawn's Key West flats boat into Fellsmere stick marsh. 4 large-mouth on the day, the largest came on a domestic shiner, 2 on worms, 1 on rattle trap. 3 were caught in the SW bedding, 1 was caught in the NW stumps. If anyone finds Shawn's blue jacket on the water, just call.

Mosquito Lagoon Again

2009-01-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

Went back to the channel, a couple of break-offs, but nothing of decent size in the boat. Finally got two black drum, including this one. I'm not impressed with the meat quality. Pretty mushy.

Winter-Time Mosquito Lagoon

2008-12-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

No luck in the flats, finally setup shop today in the channel near Oak Hill in Mosquito lagoon. Got a lot of decent snapper, 2 or 3 big break-offs (probably grouper) and 2 grouper, the first is 18" the second was 24". All went back into the drink. Guess who had the hot hand.

Shorty Snook

2008-10-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

Found a great little spot just south of sebastian, for catching shorty snooks off a little jetty. Here's a sampler....

Also caught a few big "Look-Down" fish

Catch of the day, big Jack. broke my rod.

A Load of Carp

2008-04-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

Check out the Carp that Shawn's son Tyler pulled out of the pond behind their house. Wow!

Really Inshore Fishing

2008-03-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

Why bother fishing that retention pond out back? Here's why. Mike and Micayla are shown here with 3 nice size bass pulled from a retention pond about 3 acres large, less than a mile from the Melbourne, Florida International Airport. Tackle of choice? Pieces of bread, and Zepco fishing poles, with 6 lb test.

February Offshore Hunt

2008-02-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

Nice day, out to the Gulf Stream by myself to catch some mahi. I started trolling 2 dead ballyhoo and 1 plug, after a half hour, BAM, the plug reel started peeling line. I slowed the boat and started working a crappy reel. I had to force the reel one crank at a time. At this point the 2 ballyhoo sank down, BAM! BAM!, two more hits. What a mess! I reel in the first two peanuts, and the third I got fancy with, trying to make it jump. It got off. No more hits for the day but at least I got a good shot of turtle on the way in.

More Christmas Fishing

2007-12-29T13:49:00.000-08:00

Steve, myself, Erik, Ethan, Homey and Molly go fishing over the holiday break.. Started out in the flats, but was too cold for any action. Moved on to the inlet for some flounder fishing.....nada. Finally went down to the honey hole south of Wabasso, ended up finally getting some Jack Crevalle, Mangrove snapper and catfish.

Christmas Break

2007-12-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

Pretty good day of fishing. Went camping with Steve and the dogs. Hooked up with a decent sheepshead, snook, and a late-night mongo redfish, caught on a fresh-water shiner.

Some Winter Inshore Fishing

2007-12-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

Various fishing trips, pulled into one post. Start off with a small snook caught just south of Wabasso in November and a decent trout caught by Steve and Captain Molly in December.

Wabasso Trip

2007-11-03T17:04:00.000-07:00

Well, Hurricane Noel finally blew by, and the winds have calmed down enough. Time to hit the IRL. Here's the newest member of the Whiting family, Molly.

Steve finally catches a decent redfish, 21"

One of 4 monster snook on the day.

Decent black drum. Other honorable mentions, 2 ladyfish, keeper trout, and a teeny tiny weakfish with no spots.

Bonito Swarm

2007-08-04T17:28:00.000-07:00

Man, I have never seen so many fish breaking the surface at once. Arriving at the 8A reef, the first catch of the day ended up being this big ole barracuda.

Saturday morning there were literally hundreds, if not thousands of Bonito hitting the surface of the water like crazy! And it just continued all day.

Amazingly, we only hooked up with 3 or 4 of the feisty suckers. Man, do they fight, but scatter the minute you get near. We had 3 hits on live pinfish, broke off the lines, and we went back to trolling.

But, at least Troy got his first fish. A large fish, it gave quite the fight.

If you can't see the video below, get the flash player @
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/alternates/

Good trout day

2007-08-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

While getting some pinfish for tomorrow's offshore adventure, I caught these two trout, one almost 20 inches at 1 lb, the other 24 inches at 2 lbs.

Baby Mahi Fun

2007-07-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day to go fishing for mahi. We stopped by 8A reef to get a kingfish or 2, after a half hour, and catching what we thought might be skipjack tuna, we headed further out to the cones.

Finding a piece of floating bamboo, we starting casting some gulp minnows. Something shot 3 feet out of the water, and BAM! Reeled in a baby mahi.

Squish, Oops

After catching 4 of these miniatures, we trolled the cones for an hour or 2 with no luck. Headed down to Pelican Flats for the first time, and found 1 kingfish. Lesson learned, don't try to lift a 10 lb. kingfish by the leader, with a snap-swivel. Game over, fish took a nice rapala lure with it. Oh, and the tuna? Yup, just a bonito.

King of 8A

2007-07-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

Pretty rough day at the 8A reef today. Was supposed to be 1 to 2 foot, was actually 3-4 with a heavy chop. I was really looking forward to go 25 miles out to try and get the elusive mahi, but not today. Did pretty good on the kings, we caught 3 and kept 2, the biggest was 35", 10 lbs. Trolling diving plugs again, with no hits on the ballyhoo. Was probably too choppy for a good surface bite, we should've just used plugs all day for this. I want to go bottom fishing, but today wasn't a good day to anchor.

Homey with his eyes on fresh sushi.

Catch of the day

Huntin' for Reds

2007-07-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

On the hunt for reds, still haven't gotten one all year. Same tactics as last year, early morning fishing, hitting known redfish spots near Grant and Sebastian. Mostly using live shrimp on jigs and freeline, with 8 to 10 lb mono test with 15 lb fluor. Trying some of the gulp 5" jerk shad in chartreuse and white with a jig, gold spoons, D.O.A shrimp, no luck. I usually target reds first thing, between 6:30 and 9:30, water temperature has been pretty darn warm even then, at least 81. Next time I go for reds, i'll be targeting some deeper water near the flats, maybe they're keeping cool here.

Oh, here's my brother Brian catching a slimy sailcat. We both caught one on the day, quite a fight on 8 lb test, bit of a let down when we got them to the boat though.

Kingfishing

2007-06-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

Time for some offshore fishing. My cousin and I take his 19 foot Sea Fox bay boat offshore to see what we can get trolling. The 8A reef out of Port Canaveral does well by us, 5 kingfish on the day, we kept 1 for some dinner. Caught on ballyhoo and diving plugs, this reef is very productive. We go another 10 miles east, and end up hooking with our first bull dolphin. Getting it to the boat, we see it's a good 3-4 feet, probably 30-35 pounds. It turns and runs, got a little slack in line and spit the 2 hooked ballyhoo. Now, I feel the dolphin-fish taunting me every week, and am just biding my time to finish the job of landing a bull.

Summer's Coming

2007-05-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since the last post. Not much to speak of since then. I've been on a few fishing trips inshore, but haven't caught much. No snook, no redfish, mostly puffers, catfish, and a couple trout. I finally got something different, this ladyfish is the first I've gotten to the boat without throwing a hook, about 22 inches with the tail pinched.

Christmas Fishing Adventure

2006-12-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

While family is in town for the Christmas holiday, the guys decide to go flounder fishing by the Sebastian Inlet cutting table. Myself, cousin Steve, brother Erik, nephew Ethan, and cousin Chris take advantage of a somewhat calm day go inshore, but get caught in a squall while fishing. The seagulls are really bad, and keep diving on our shrimp before they even touch the water. We got a mixed bag of some tiny flounder, jack, catfish, snapper, sheepshead, and whiting.

Chris (left), Steve (white) pose in front of Chris's
first catch, a small jack.

Chris (left), Ethan (middle), me (right), pose with
Ethan's first fish and Chris's namesake,
a whiting (aka southern kingfish).

Snook-On!

2006-11-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

My first snook, 27 inches. Caught off the North Jetty at the Sebastian Inlet. Thank God for the new tail-pinch rule.

North Indian River

2006-09-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple snaps from an inshore trip at the very north tip of the Indian River. The first is a snap of a Florida Pompano Steve caught, the second is the sunrise with the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building on the left.

Fat Keeper

2006-09-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

Another redfish, this time caught near Jorgensen's Landing near Grant. Fish and wildlife measured it at 26 inches, 7.5 pounds.

My First Boat

2006-08-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

It definitely didn't take long to get hooked. Pretty soon, I went on Ebay, and found a nice flats boat near Tarpon Springs, Florida. For just about $3K and gas, I'm in the game.

Was a flats boat the right choice? Well check out my first bite of the day, after putting in just south of Sebastian Inlet.

And just to prove I caught it

A success story in the Indian River lagoon. I took this picture of a Florida manatee in Honest John's Fish Camp the same day i caught this red. Still endangered, there are about 3,000 of them in Florida today.

Nice Trout

2006-07-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

OK, let's get this blog started. Little background, this blog is started to keep a record of my fishing addiction, since it started in the Spring of 2006. Amazingly, I've spent almost my whole life in south and central Florida since, oh, 1979, and had only been fishing once before. After 27 years my cousin, Steve, got me fishing in the Indian River Lagoon, and I haven't looked back, until today.

Nice trout Steve, how does that make you feel?