The Orlando Area Fishing Report from Spotted Tail 5.19.12
Upcoming Event- Inaugural Space Coast International Surf Fishing Tournament, Memorial Day weekend, May 25-27. For more information click here http://internationalsurffishingtournament.com/
Sad News- Vic Dunaway passed away on Thursday. Vic was the original editor at Florida Sportsman magazine and guided that publication to a pre-eminent position among American fishing magazines. Vic bought the first article I ever wrote, a piece about fishing at Lostman’s Key in Everglades National park, for which I will ever be grateful to him.
His daughter Mari writes, “His wishes were that there be no funeral. He just wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the Gulf of Mexico. If you wish to honor his memory, please send a contribution to the Coastal Conservation Association of Florida, P. O. Box 568886, Orlando, FL 32856. As I’m sure you know, the preservation of Florida’s coastal waters was important to him.”
I’m sure the next issue of Florida Sportsman will run a glowing tribute to him, which will be well deserved. Florida sportsmen will miss him, and should honor his legacy.
To all you discoers, Donna Summers also passed on Thursday. She worked hard for the money!
Fish of the Week- still the Spotted Seatrout!
My boat trailer is an aluminum frame EZ Loader. Aluminum or not, it had some galvanized parts and leaf springs, all of which were getting very rusty. Whoever said, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” obviously never had a boat trailer.
Tuesday I brought the trailer to EZ Loader in Port St. Lucie for some refurbishing action. After I dropped it off, I drove to Jensen Beach and met Mark Nichols for some fishing action down the south end of the IRL.
We went wade fishing. Fishing was good. Steady action from slot trout with the occasional crevalle and bluefish thrown in kept us entertained. The lure of choice, as might be expected, was a three inch DOA Shrimp.
It was great to see Mark and spend some time with him. The fish were a gift from God.
Wednesday I went to the Mosquito Lagoon to do some scouting. I had a fly charter on Thursday and wanted to show the guy some fish.
I started at the south end of Tiger Shoal, using the trolling motor to save some time. I went almost all the way to the north entrance with a couple of small trout to show for it. All the reds and big trout that had been up there were gone. So sad.
I looked in quite a few other places. The best I found was moderate numbers of single reds in shallow water, which I did not fish. There was a lot of barren territory.
When I get a new fly rod I do not take the plastic off the handle until that rod catches a “real” fish. I have had a new Temple Fork rod for at least a month that still had the plastic on the handle, which was beginning to irk me. I stopped at a bar on the way back to the boat ramp and got three trout there on a black and purple streamer, the first of which was 24 inches long.
The plastic is finally off the handle.
Thursday Shaun Waterman, a fly fisher from Ontario, joined me for a day’s fishing. He’d never fished in saltwater before. It wasn’t windy at all, but it was very gray. As I headed to the spot I found the fish on Wednesday I was praying they would be tailing.
Of course they weren’t. We did see the occasional tail, but it would be up, down, and no more. In addition to the clouds, the water where we were fishing was kind of dirty.
We ran over quite a few but never got any kind of real shot. We just couldn’t see. I had him try blind casting with a spoon fly for a while but that didn’t work either.
After a couple frustrating hours I decided to see if we could find anything better. We didn’t.
After a while I brought Shaun to the bar where I had caught the trout the day before. There were two people wading there. I gave them wide berth and we started fishing the bar about halfway up, blind casting the streamer to the edge of the dropoff.
We ran over a couple nice fish but no bites.
In a brief interlude with sunlight I thought I saw a fish on the inside of the bar. I wasn’t sure what it was because it was motionless, and facing right at us, but I pointed it out to Shaun. He dropped the fly about a foot in front of it and what turned out to actually be a fish zoomed up and immediately ate.
It was a redfish about 20 inches long. Not huge to be sure but Shaun’s first saltwater fish on fly. Congratulations, sir!
It was the only bite we got. We went back to near where we started. The fish had started tailing, not hard, but enough to keep us busy. Shaun had one great cast I thought sure would work but the fish never responded to it. Then the east wind came up and we never saw another fish.
It rained hard Thursday night and my roof started leaking. No more fishing until that problem is fixed.
That is this week’s Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report.
Life is great and I love my work!
Life is short. Go Fishing!
John Kumiski
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
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