Channel Catfish 6 lb 10 oz - CS Lee Park

I'm back from vacation! Dealing with fishing withdrawals all week I quickly cured that by getting some rods in the water down by CS Lee Park. It must have been around midnight by the time me and Kyle got setup. There wasn't much action throughout the night there. We were actually thinking about switching spots but I decided to just stick it out where we were already posted. And with my patience, I was rewarded with a really nice catfish. Sometime around 1:30AM I got a nice hit and a great fight from a 6 lb 10 oz catfish. This cat was pulling line like crazy, haven't had a catfish fight like that in months. Got it in the cooler and was ready for more. But that was the only fish from CS Lee Park. On the way home we stopped at Mullet Lake Park by the dock where Kyle caught another small catfish, too small to keep though.

Location: C.S. Lee Park
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu size 2 hook on carolina rig - 1 oz sinker

Species: Channel Catfish
Weight: 6 LB 10 OZ
Bait: nightcrawlers

One more catfish before the roadtrip

Due to a power outage at my house and a week long vacation, this post was delayed for 9 days. The events in this post happened on the evening of 7/18/11.

Me and Kyle setout for a final trip before I was leaving to pickup my son from his moms' house in Ohio and visit family in Indiana. I believe we started around 6-7PM at CS Lee Park. It was still light out but we were waiting for sundown. No bites or anything for awhile. In fact, the bites didn't start until it was dark. I ended up catching a nice little 1 lb 4 oz catfish after sundown. I got another catfish too, but it was too small to keep. Back in the water it swam away, perhaps I'll get him another day. :)

So when I got home around 10PM, I noticed the street lights were out and all the houses were dark. A transformer was blown which is normally no big deal. But the sucky part is we had to finish getting ready to leave for our roadtrip. On top of that, the power didn't even come back until 4AM. Here's a picture of the catfish I caught. I had to use a battery operated lantern to get some light. I was basically cleaning this fish in the dark.

Location: C.S. Lee Park
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu size 2 hook on carolina rig - 1 oz sinker

Species: Channel Catfish
Weight: 1 LB 4 OZ
Bait: nightcrawlers

Saturday Night Chasing Channel Cat

Last night the moon was around 95% full. It was a stormy night from Altamonte Springs to Oviedo area but I noticed the storm was headed south-southeast. I saw a good opportunity to get some fishing done at CS Lee Park since the storms were avoiding that area completely. With two poles, one with nightcrawlers and one with cut bait, I was targeting small and large fish. I first caught a small catfish about 12" long using a nightcrawler and size 2 hook. Then my other pole caught a florida gar using a dead shiner and size 3/0 hook. All of my hooks are the Owners Mutu Light style, extremely sharp and very effective hook set ratio.
Later in the evening Kyle and Tara came out to join me by the bank while the fish were still biting. Tara came out with two Florida Gars using dead shiners. I also caught another Channel Catfish, this one was a bigger 2 lb 5 oz using nightcrawlers again with the smaller size 2 hook. It was around 3am and we called it a night, the mosquitos were getting bad and the fish were not as active. The two catfish I took home on ice.

Location: C.S. Lee Park
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu size 2 hook on carolina rig - 1 oz sinker

Species: Channel Catfish
Weight: 2 LB 5 OZ
Bait: nightcrawlers

1st Spotted Seatrout - 23.5" - 5 lb 10 oz

This morning around 7:30am I caught a monster 5 lb 10 oz Spotted Seatrout from the South Causeway using a live croaker on a 3/0 Owners Mutu Light circle hook. To my surprise there were no jacks biting at all...or bluefish for that matter. I finially got a good bite but nothing after the initial hit, so I figured it had either killed my bait or took it off my hook. Curious to check my line, I started to reel in but this trout must have been watching. After a few turns of my reel it slammed it as I was reeling up, and it was fish on baby! It didn't take long to wear itself down but I also had to figure out a way to get it up without breaking my line. The pier is a good 10-15 feet above the water, so line lifting will risk losing the fish. Plus I don't have a landing net that will reach that far below me. Fortunately there's a seawall near the front of the pier where my 4-5 foot dip net will reach, and safely scoop this fish out of the water. I just had to carefully move the fish down there as I'm holding my rod and keeping the fish in the water. Everything worked out well and we got it out. I'm glad Jevin was there to help me out, otherwise I don't know what I would've done. This is my first spotted seatrout catch, and a damn good one. It's sitting in the cooler on ice right now waiting to be cleaned for dinner. Here in Florida, the size regulations for the Spotted Seatrout is 15" to 20" with a bag limit of 4. However, you are allowed to keep (1) over 20" long. Mine was 23.5" long.

Location: South Causeway, New Smyrna Beach
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu 3/0 hook on carolina rig - 3 oz sinker

Species: Spotted Seatrout
Weight: 5 LB 10 OZ
Bait: live croaker

From Freshwater to Saltwater - Crevalle Jack / Sand Trout

Last night Kyle talked about fishing the Mullet Lake river bank again, and I haven't been there in about 6 weeks. I'm always down to fish, so we prepped our rods for freshwater and got our gear in my car to do some night bank fishing. I had the rod holders, my Coleman eletric lantern, headlamp, frozen mullet and cut shad, big hooks, everything we needed to catch some monster cats. But as soon as we started walking through the grasses to even get to the bank, we noticed the terrain was swampy and flooded with all the rainfall lately. It's the rainy season in Florida afterall, so unless there's a generous dry spell I don't foresee the bank being a good idea anytime soon. Alot of big spiders too, now I'm not a wuss when it comes to bugs but I don't do spiders. The water looked like it was ankle deep in some places as well, so we turned around and the bank fishing that night was a bust before it even started. Damn!

Determined to fish somewhere, we convinced each other to just goto New Smyrna. The high tide would be in our favor so the baitfish should be plentiful. At the time we weren't planning to stay all night either but hey, nobody says fishing is predictable. We caught what we need for bait, including nice small mullet and croakers. I figured with all the bait we had, we should use it to our advantage for a morning bite. I felt confident the bluefish and crevalle jacks would bite, especially with live mullet. The only problem was the outgoing tide was extremely strong in the morning. So strong it was dragging 3oz and 4oz pyramid sinkers. Plus fish don't even bite well when the tide is moving so fast. It was a slow morning. I was hoping the current would slow down in time for sunrise but it didn't. I still managed to catch one Crevalle Jack and then later in the morning I caught a trout. I believe this one is a Sand Trout, which is not regulated in Florida. It was over 15" long and weighed 1 lb 6 oz. This is a new species for me to catch :)

Location: South Causeway, New Smyrna Beach
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu 6/0 hook on carolina rig - 3 oz sinker

Species: Sand Trout
Weight: 1 LB 6 OZ
Bait: live croaker or mullet