Happy Birthday, Alex Kumiski!
After doing some telephone research, Monday morning found Scott Radloff and I launching the Mitzi at Kennedy Point Park in Titusville. The goal was to do some scouting and hopefully find some redfish and seatrout in the Indian River Lagoon.
We poled and ran quite a distance from the Rinker Canal to Parrish Park. Having been in Alaska all summer and having heard about the algae bloom in the lagoons I was not expecting much. This was a good thing. We didn’t find much.
The water clarity was better at the south end of where we looked. It wasn’t very good anywhere. The closer we got to shore the dirtier the water got.
We did not see many fish. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in lack of size. We got three reds between us, mine on a DOA Shrimp, Scott’s on a Gulp. The largest was 22 inches. I tossed a Chug Bug all morning and did not get a single response.
The boat ran well and it was wonderful to be on home waters again.
Tuesday Tammy Wilson and I tried a similar routine on the Banana River Lagoon, launching at Kelly Park. The water was at least as clean as the cleaner places we saw in the Indian River Lagoon. However, there was very little seagrass. Most of the bottom was bare.
I wanted to run down toward Pineda Causeway but the whitecaps made me re-think that strategy. We did not see many fish. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in lack of size. I got one red on a mullet chunk from under a dock, a skinny 21 inch fish. We beat the rain back to the dock, pulling the boat at about 1:30.
Thursday I went up the road to the Econ, just to check it out. It is running quite high, higher than I would want to wade in.
With this as my background I had a fly charter on Friday with Jim Coraci. He had never caught a redfish before and desperately wanted to do so.
We launched at Parrish Park at 7 AM, running and poling as far south as the NASA Causeway. We only saw a few fish, and had zero shots. Plenty of boats, though!
We turned around and ran north of Parrish Park. We found a few reds working along a shoreline up there. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in lack of size. However, Jim managed to get three bites on a Merkin crab, and landed two redfish. One was a beautiful fish with 12 spots. The other was tailing with a partner.
Lovely to see tailing fish, even if, again, they were only about 21 or 22 inches long. Better small fish than no fish!
I will be doing more exploration in the upcoming week. It’s the end of September- there ought to be mind-boggling numbers of mullet everywhere in those lagoons. There definitely were not, so I need to look along the beach.
That is this week’s Orlando area 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 2012. All rights are reserved.
What do you know about the timing and effect of offshore redfish spawning and its effect on the size and numbers of fish in the Mosquito and Indian River Lagoons?
timing- they’re going at it right now, but will be ending in 2-3 weeks.
effect on lagoons- the lagoons have their own spawning fish, at least at our end. yes, the reds spawn in the lagoons, something they don’t do in many places.
i don’t think the fish spawning in the inlets have a great deal of effect on the population of reds in the lagoons themselves. it not like redfish are great travelers.
Great report John. As you said, you always post with no embellishments but I would like to add that you did an awesome job of fighting the wind. You gave me shots that should not have been available. Most of what a good guide does is probably never noticed. Thinking back, you poled us into position every time and kept me the fly guy from hooking the spin guy. Thanks for a pulling out a great day under rough conditions.
SK