NSB South Causeway - Mantis Shrimp Introduction

Well the pier lights are still out on the North Causeway in NSB. It's been about two weeks now so I wish someone would take care of it, but thats Volusia County. They probably can't afford the light bulbs or something.

So here I was at the South Causeway. Surprisingly only a few cars in the parking lot, so it was actually fishable this time. First things first, had to find some bait. Only problem was they were too big. All I could see were schools of big "smoker" mullet. They still work for catfish since you can just fillet the meat off of them, but I like the smaller finger mullet so I can use the gut section on my hook. With finger mullet in scarce quantities, I decided to keep my castnet ready in my hands so I didn't even get a line wet last night. Besides my main mission was to net some mullet for catfishing.

When I walked up to the pier I noticed a couple with their kids, they weren't fishing either. Instead they were looking for mantis shrimp. Whats a Mantis Shrimp? Is it a mantis or a shrimp? Well in fact, it's neither. It gets it's name by the physical resemblance to both the praying mantis and the shrimp. The nice couple explained why they had them, apparently it's great redfish bait. In fact, the guy said it was like redfish candy. He's caught big 30-40" reds on them apparently. One thing they stressed over and over was to never handle them carelessly or with bare hands. They can inflict severe cuts and gashes if handled improperly.

I proceeded to look for finger mullet then came across some Mantis Shrimp floating down current. Maybe a minute later I saw another one. Then awhile later I found another one. After the third one, I didn't see anymore. The biggest one was about 9" long! Once you get a close look at these marine creatures it's just fascinating. Makes you wonder how tough a Redfish's stomach is to withstand such brutal defense weapons. Mantis shrimp sport powerful claws that they use to attack and kill prey by spearing, stunning or dismemberment. And although it happens rarely, some larger species of mantis shrimp are capable of breaking through aquarium glass. Whoa.