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.

Port Canaveral Offshore 7/29/12

My friend Shaun at work invited me on his family boat for an offshore fishing trip this weekend. All together is was Shaun, his sister Tiffany and husband Todd, Shauns dad who owns the boat, and then their friend who is a fishing guide that knows the waters pretty well. Including myself there were six people on the boat. The guide brought all the tackle we needed. Plus we were just trolling, so I didn't have to bring my fishing pole.

We launched at Port Canaveral around 7:30AM and man was the ride out bumpy. I bruised my back, bottom and elbow pretty good trying to brace myself against the impact as we cruised about 35mph for 30 minutes. Our first fishing spot was an artificial reef about 25-30 miles out. The guide setup the trolling lines, each with a mahi rig tipped with frozen ballyho. As soon as we started trolling a line was hit and fish on! Todd grabbed the rod and reeled in the first fish of the day, a big Barracuda.



No more hits for a couple hours, we probably circled that reef at least a dozen times. It was time to switch location, so we reeled in all the rods and headed to deeper water. We stopped about 38-40 miles out as we hit the gulfstream. Let me tell you the water out there is so blue and pretty that you just want to jump right in. Our guide friend put the rods back out in the water and we began trolling again. The only fish caught out there was a Bonito Tuna that Shauns' dad reeled in and released after a quick photo. If it was me, I probably would've kept it for sharks. Bonito is actually at the top of the list for shark bait. It's a really red and bloody meat that sharks can't resist.



Again, several hours and no more hits. The topwater action was really slow today so we slow trolled back towards inland. We returned to the reef where we started and circled several times. Another Barracuda hit a line and this time it was Tiffany's turn to reel it in. This would turn out to be the last fish in the boat for the day.



A closeup of the Barracuda teeth...


Back to trolling the reef and another hit. Guess what it was my turn! This fish was was taking line at will though, tightened the drag as much as we safely could but nothing was stopping it. Finially it stopped and it was time to reel. Unfortunately the reel I was using was very difficult to handle. The reel kept getting stuck as I'm trying to spin the handle. Because of this, there was too much slack in the line and the fish came off. I was disappointed to say the least. Not a good feeling knowing you just lost a big fish. But thats fishing, sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't.

We headed back to the dock around 5:00pm with no fish in the cooler but I still had fun. The fishing was just slow that day, nothing you can do about that. It was my first time offshore and I got to see a few fish I don't normally see. Also I learned alot from the guide just being able to watch how he hooks the ballyho onto those mahi rigs. Hopefully someday I'll get to try it again!