New Smyrna - North/South Causeways Update

Last night was my first trip to New Smyrna since about November. My buddy Kyle rode with me, and unfortunately there wasn't anything to really talk about. To be honest, it was a complete waste of gas to get out there. We should've went catfishing instead. Doh!


First of all, the South Causeway area is under construction. With the pier lights disconnected it's pitch dark at night. The whole entire seawall dock is fenced off as well and says no trespassing. The only good thing to note is the actual pier under the bridge is still open to fish during daylight I believe. But since the lights are out, it's a definite no go at night. Hard to tell how long construction will last too. Not a good start to our trip...

So it was off to the North Causeway pier, and upon entering the parking lot things started looking up. The parking lot was empty and the pier lights were on, we had the whole place to ourselves. So we unloaded our gear and walked out, saw a bunch of needlefish in the water but absolutely NO MULLET. The fall bait run is over, I understand this, but usually you can find a few schools at night near the pier lights. My guess is the upcoming cold front has pushed them into deeper water so you just couldn't see them. With that said, we didn't fish much. The only thing I caught with my castnet was a small threadfin herring. Located a few big mullet, but they were just too deep and fast to castnet. I tried multiple times and came up with nothing. So that was our night. I'm going to wait until at least mid-February and try again when it warms up a little. For now, I'll just focus on the Shad & Crappie Derby and doing a little catfishing here and there. In fact this weekend I have a Crappie Rally to attend, these are the same derby events I attended last year with the raffle prizes. I'll let you know how it goes!