The Orlando Area Fishing Report from Spotted Tail 6.9.12
On Sunday, friend and neighbor Karl Dienst joined me for a quick strike. We launched at Kennedy Point at 6 AM. We got to the fishing spot and no one else was there! Amazing.
The fish were not as thick as they were. We did not see a redfish. Karl got several nice trout on a white plastic worm, the kind you use for largemouth bass. I got a few on the Bait Buster. We also got a few nice ladyfish. Still looking for tarpon, still haven’t seen any.
The Bait Buster is a great lure for any mullet-eating fish.
The boat was on the trailer at 10AM.
Monday I went solo, launching at Marina Park. Got a couple trout and ladyfish on a Chug Bug, but it was slow. Saw one pod of redfish that would not let me near them. Switched to a Bait Buster and got a couple more trout.
I ran around much of Turnbull Basin and didn’t see much. On an ominous note, the nasty water we had last summer is showing itself again- found one large spot of dirty water on the west side south of the safety zone, and a big chunk of filthy water around Duckroost Cove.
After going to another spot I went wading, got four slot redfish on a black Clouser Minnow, quite satisfying.
Monday afternoon Sue and I brought son Alex to the airport, sending him off to Goodnews. It’s that time of year.
Tuesday morning Scott Radloff and I launched the Mitzi at Lee Wenner Park. It was overcast and windy, coming out of the west.
Scott got a small red on a Gulp on this third cast.
We got a nice trout on a DOA Shrimp in the next hour. It was too slow and visibility was not that great, so we put the boat on the trailer and went to Kelly Park, launching into the Banana River Lagoon.
I had gotten good reports about the BRL but we fished until 2 PM and got one trout that Scott convinced to take a Chug Bug. Not a lot of seagrass there any more.
Wednesday fly caster Darrin Prestangen met me at Marina Park. It was overcast and windy, terrible fly fishing conditions. Darrin, used to blind-casting in the streams of Colorado, blind-cast all morning. We did not get a fish. We did get rained on. We did see another boat pull in a 30 pound class redfish on the northwest side of the railroad trestle.
In the afternoon we went to where I had gotten the four reds a few days earlier. It was still very hard to see, but Darrin managed to sight-fish his first ever redfish (a small one) and a 20 inch seatrout, both on sliders.
The boat was on the trailer at 3 PM.
Darrin's first saltwater fish was this nice trout.
Thursday I did honey-dos. The weather was awful. It was a good day to stay home.
Friday Darrin joined me again, his last hurrah for this trip. We launched at Parrish Park. It was overcast but the wind was light.
We saw one tailing fish at the first spot, at which we did not get a shot. It did not tail very long.
We found a small school of fish at the second spot. We found them by running them over. There was a stampede.
We ran over several singles too. There were fish there but between the clouds and the dark bottom we could not see them at all.
We went back to the place where Darrin had caught his two fish the previous trip.
In a stunning turn of events there were more fish there than the previous day. Darrin got two reds and a fine black mullet on the estaz crabby thing fly. The fly goes into commercial production tomorrow! The reds at this spot run small, but at least we could sight fish.
Mullet, on fly!
The fly goes on sale tomorrow!
We went to another, similar spot and there were even more reds. Again, they were small, about 20 inch fish, but he got four more on a Son of Clouser. There were many refusals and blown shots. In spite of the clouds fishing was actually quite good. If the fish had been bigger I would have said it was excellent. At any rate we had a great time.
This red (and several others) fell for the Son of Clouser.
Although the fish ran small, at least we could sight fish.
The double spotted tail...
The boat was on the trailer at 3 PM.
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
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
The link on your latest MailChimp campaign to http://www.spottedtail.com is http://http//www.spottedtail so it doesn’t work. If you don’t get a lot of traffic to the site from your most recent campaign — that’s why.
Great post as always. Not excited about the dirty water showing up. I just tried night fishing from my kayak for the first time last night and had a great time. Lost track of how many trout I caught. Have you considered promoting night charters during the hot weather season?
thanks for the heads-up, and the kind words. as far as summer night fishing, i’ve spent my last five summers in alaska. i have not tried to promote that.