Daytime NSB and Night Flat Bridge Report 12/19

Knowing there's a major cold front coming this weekend, we probably won't be fishing on Saturday. In fact it's the first Saturday in 6-7 weeks that I won't fish, wow! I want to go but forecast says the daytime high is only 60, with nighttime lows in the 30's. Plus I really don't want to get sick right before Christmas.
Wednesday was one of the last warm days before the cold front hits central Florida. I decided it would be cool to spend the whole day fishing while it's still warm. Thankfully it was an especially early release day at my sons' school too, which is getting ready for their 2-week winter break. So at 1 o'clock I picked him up and went home to get everything loaded up. After a short errand to UPS Store and backtrack to the house because my son forgot his DS....lol....we finially made it out to 38 Live Bait around 3:30. I got some fiddlers and shrimp then headed to the north causeway. I started with fiddlers, no bites. Used some live shrimp, then Cody and I caught a stingray back to back. That was it. A good hour passed with no bites, even on live shrimp. While out there I snagged a seahorse while checking my bait. It was tangled in some seaweed on my hook. Don't worry the seahorse wasn't harmed or poked. Cody was especially excited to see his first seahorse. I let him use the net to put it back in the water.







With the slow bite during the daytime trip, I still had alot of live shrimp and fiddlers leftover. Invited my friend Zack to fish the Flat Bridge after I got Cody to bed. The action out there was a little better. Immediately jigged with gulp swimming mullet and caught small blues like crazy. I had 3 on the bridge in no time. After the third one, my live shrimp rod gets a bite and it's a nice sized whiting. In the cooler it went. Waiting awhile for another bite. Zack jigged with his gulp swimming mullet, and caught a small 12" flounder, barely legal! In the cooler. LOL
Bite slowed again after that, couldn't even get the small blues to bite. Left there with 2 fish in the cooler. Hey I'll take what I can get at this point.

12" Flounder at South Causeway

Started in New Smyrna this morning around 6am. First stop was the South Causeway in where my old friend Dave was already setup on the dock. Dave is the guy I learned all about shad fishing on the St Johns river. It was a very foggy morning but as the sun came up the fog lifted pretty quick. I targeted the shallow area next to the parking lot with a Gulp new penny shrimp. First cast, I landed a 12" flounder!



Nothing else the rest of the day LOL. We moved around to different spots, even tried Sleepy Hollow without any luck. By the way, Sleepy Hollow is infested with ticks. After walking through the woods I checked our cloths, found 1 tick on my pants and 2 ticks on my sons' cloths. Gross!

Finished off our trip by going back to the South Causeway to see how Dave was doing. He was fishing with mussels for sheepshead, I swear it looked like a big booger on his hook. He said he caught 3 big sheeps though, with alot of small ones thrown back. I bought a couple dozen fiddler crabs to try my luck at this, but only caught 2 mangrove snappers. I think I got there too late cause the current was ripping so fast. Dave said when the tide starts going slack, thats when the sheepshead will come in to feed. So with that said, I will just have to try again next week. :)

Flat Bridge / Sleepy Hollow / NSB Report

Been fishing with artificials lately trying to master the art of jigging. The past few Saturdays I've had off work as well, so I've been taking my son Cody out early in the morning and fishing at first light. My favorite soft plastics are the DOA paddletails, gulp swimming mullet and gulp shrimp. We normally start at the flat bridge and then work our way to sleepy hollow, and then finially New Smyrna area. I really haven't caught much to talk about besides some small trout and a few blues. I did catch my first inshore Barracuda near the culvert side of sleepy hollow. It was a small one but still a first species for me.



The trout fishing has been hot as of late even if they are all undersized. I can usually find them chasing bait at night near bridge and pier lights. They seem to strike just about anything you put in front of them too. Small blues are in the mix as well.

However the flounder bite has slowed tremendously in the river. My friend Kyle caught a couple in New Smyrna, but reports from the famous "flattie" bridge in Port Orange have little to show. Next fishing trip I'm going to try a little different approach and go with a tandem rig like I do with the St Johns shad run. I'm also going to jig a live finger mullet pinned to the bottom. I've been reading up on successful flounder fishing and here's a few notes that came out of my research..

Use live bait, finger mullet in the 4-5 inch range. Mud minnows also work.
Don't use such a long leader between the swivel and hook. 12 inches will help keep the bait down and not allow it to get too high in the water column.
Don't just cast into one area as flounder are ambush predaters. fan cast and slowly bring the line in. pick it up a little and let it drop this way your covering ground.
Flounder like to be in the sand, but like to have some structure next to them.
Use smaller hooks- 1/0, 2/0 maybe even a 3/0. Kahle hooks are preferred.