Indian River Lagoon Fishing Report 32214
The Mitzi is still for sale! It’s just had an annual service, and at that time the hours were 984.
My contact at the Circle K store in Christmas told me last week he caught a seatrout so big its photo weighed 32 pounds.
Bumper sticker of the week-
On Sunday Mr. Derek Wensky, from San Francisco, found himself riding over the surface of the Indian River Lagoon in the Mitzi. He had never fished in Florida before. I can’t claim fishing was fabulous, or even hot, but he did catch a few. First came a redfish, a modest fellow that made the error of biting Derek’s DOA CAL Shad tail. After him quite a few fish laughed at our attempts. While we were eating lunch I soaked a piece of mullet. A handsome seatrout ate it. Lastly, we found a clump of black drum. Derek switched from the shad to a clear DOA Shrimp and one of those drum was fooled. Most of the fish we saw had too much sense to bite though.
Derek had never heard of black drum before this.
DOA Shrimp- deadly on anything.
Monday’s trip was blown out.
Tuesday’s trip was blown out.
Wednesday found me in a room at the Orlando VAMC with Dr. Tran. She said to come back next year. Can’t say the exam was anything more than cursory.
Thursday was the first day of spring! Brasileiro Kelven Lopes, a fly fishing fisheries biologist who lives in Brasilia, found himself riding over the surface of the Indian River Lagoon in the Mitzi. He was a real good angler and got a couple reds on my redfish bitters fly right out of the gate.
They don’t have redfish in Brasil. This was Kelven’s first.
Things slowed down then. We changed spots and he got a nice trout on a big black wooly bugger.
They don’t have seatrout in Brasil, either. Kelven prepares to release this one.
We found another clump of black drum that did not take anything we tried. But he got another redfish, the best of the day, on an ugly fly with a rubber hackle tail, a brown estaz body, and a rubber hackle wing.
Best fish of the day.
We went to another spot but there was nothing there so we returned to a place we had already fished. The fish were still laughing at us as we left, although we should not forget about nor discount the four quality puffers my flies cleverly fooled!
Recording the puffer for posterity.
I hadn’t used my Portuguese in a long time but it was better than his English so that’s how we communicated. Misquecindo todos todos todos!
On Friday Scott Townsend and his friend Brandon joined me for a day on the Indian River Lagoon. We were snakebit. Brandon got a redfish right away on a DOA CAL Shad. He then missed three strikes in a row, at which point the fish in that spot shut down.
A happy Brandon. Things went downhill from here.
The DOA CAL Shad gets yet another redfish.
We went trout fishing for a while, getting a lot of little ones on fly and on DOA Shrimp. When that got old we went looking for redfish again. We spooked several while Scott and Brandon got the hang of sight fishing. Then a big one showed up. Brandon made a perfect cast and hooked the fish, at least 20 pounds. I gave chase with the boat. I was getting ready to grab the fish when it dove under the boat, breaking the line in the process. Damn.
Brandon has a big fish on and he’s happy. Sadly it did not last.
We looked in three other spots. No fish in one, no bites in the next, one bite and a breakoff for Scott in the last, which is how our day ended.
Tip of the week- when a fly rod and a pushpole joust the fly rod always loses.
And the winner, by a landslide, is….
And that is this week’s Indian River Lagoon fishing report.
Life is great and I love my work!
Life is short. Go Fishing!
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2014. All rights are reserved.
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