This Week’s Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report

The Orlando Area Fishing Report from Spotted Tail 4.28.12

Monday- John Napolitano and son Alex joined me for a day on the Mosquito Lagoon, launching at River Breeze. What a day it was! Cold (high in the low 70s), windy (20-25 from the NW with gusts), it was a good day to fly a kite, not so good for fishing. I was cold all day, wearing my raincoat with the hood up trying to stay warm.

To my surprise we saw a reasonable number of fish, even a few tailing reds. You needed a good cast- you were only going to get one chance before we blew by. Of course with that wind a good cast was real hard to make. We got a few trout to 20 inches, on DOA Shrimp.

Tuesday- Met fly fisherman Dan Johnson at River Breeze. Unseasonably the air temperature was 49 degrees when I launched the boat. It was still windy, but not as much as the previous day. As we idled down the ICW I predicted we wouldn’t see much until the water temperature started rising, as it had dropped into the high 60s, almost ten degrees, in two days.

Dan got his first fish just before lunchtime, a fat flounder he found by blind casting. We had seen perhaps a half dozen fish to that point.

The flattie chased off the skunk.

After lunch we had shots at both trout and redfish pretty steadily. The fish were not very aggressive. Dan got a personal best trout at 24 inches, and missed one other strike. But most fish fled in terror when he showed them the fly.

Dan's best seatrout to date...

Thursday- I picked up Ed and Ian Normand and their friend Justin at Turtle Mound at 7 AM. It was chilly but a beautiful day with a forecast high of 87. There were no clouds and not much wind. I thought we would kick fish butt. We did not.

We looked on every flat and hole around Oak Hill, seeing one fish here, three fish there, no fish there. It was a major search mission. We only had five or six bites all day, and caught one redfish and a couple of trout. Although we had a good time, I wanted these folks to do well and the result was disappointing.

Friday- Dr. George Yarko and I launched the Mitzi at Haulover at 7 AM. At the first spot we found two schools of tailing reds. Where were they yesterday? Using a gold spoon and a jerk bait we hooked three, putting two in the boat. Both were handsome fish of over 30 inches.

We poled quite a way before we saw any more fish, and they didn’t bite. We went back to the first spot and while they had moved we found them again, getting three or four more. Four boats (!) poled in on us, so we left. I hate fishing in crowds!

The Doctor is IN the fish- again.

At the last spot we had shots at several reds and big trout, and got one more red, along with 10 or 12 trout on a DOA Shrimp. The weather could not have been any nicer, just a perfect day.

Saturday- Dr. Mike Sweeney and Colonel Mike Sweeney, father and son, joined me for a day’s fishing on the Mosquito Lagoon. Again, I hoped for a respectable day. The Doctor is one of my neighbors and the Colonel just got home from his eighth overseas deployment, commanding a brigade of Marines in Afganistan. Didn’t he need a good, relaxing day?

The fish were not suicidal but there were good numbers around. We couldn’t fool the reds with metal or plastic so we resorted to meat in the form of mullet chunks. That didn’t work great, but it worked well enough to put five or six into the boat.

The Colonel gets a break from combat by getting some redfish.

We then went trouting with DOAs. That was slow. We only succeeded in getting a few shorts. Fortunately, the puffers, who have been out in force, weren’t biting either.
After a lovely day and reasonably successful session we knocked off at about 2 PM.

That is this week’s Mosquito 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 2012. All rights are reserved.