Fiddling Inlet Harbor 20" Black Drum 10/17

Another morning fiddling some sheepshead at the Inlet Harbor with my son, Cody. Loaded up 2-3 dozen live fiddlers from my home stock. Also brought a bag of frozen dead crabs to be used as chum. Just crush them inside the bag, add some water and dump in the spot your fishing. If you keep fiddlers at home, just freeze the dead ones when you spot them. The fresher the better.

We get there shortly before 8am and the tide is low. Cody gets the first two fish which were 2 short sheepshead - all released. Then I get into a small mess of snappers and catch 3 on fiddler crab - all released. No sheeps for me today, can't say I didn't try. Kept at it with the fiddlers anyway and my time paid off when I caught a 20" black drum. It was a prison outbreak today with all the stripes!









Here's a print of 20" black drum :)

27 LB / 40" Black Drum - Edgewater Easter Night!

An evening trip to New Smyrna/Edgewater on the night of Easter with my buddy Zack. We started at the North Causeway in NSB looking for live bait, and didn't see anything. Plus the pier was crowded with fishermen. So we left there and decided to try Edgewater before we went home. At Edgewater, we first attempted to jig artificials. I used a tandem rig that had two 3" gulp swimming mullets and my first cast I immediately caught a small bluefish. After releasing him back in the water, I tried the tandem rig again but no more fish. I switched to a DOA nite glow shrimp and no hits. By then my frozen filet of crevalle jack meat was thawed. So I chunked it, hooked it, and tossed it out in the water. After a short soak, I got a good hit and felt a powerful fish on the end of the line. As the fish is making runs and pulling line off my reel, I'm looking at Zack like "is this for real?". LOL
A good 5-10 minute fight and I get it up closer to the dock. It was a bigass black drum, my personal best for sure. There's no way I'm lifting it over the rails so I gently manuever it to the boat ramp where we can just slide it up. By then, the fish was extremely tired. Here are my trophy photos :)

Flat Bridge Friday Night - 1st Black Drum!

Started fishing around 5:30pm and stayed until almost 10:00pm today at the Flat Bridge. I stopped by Donald's Bait and got their 3 dz shrimp. This batch had alot of jumbo sized shrimp which is a plus. I setup in my usual spot and immediately started getting bites but most of the action was coming from those pesky pinfish. They are really thick in the water there, and they will steal your bait very quickly. Live shrimp don't stand a chance no matter how you hook them. Because of this I really didn't catch anything other then a few pinfish for awhile.

I was getting some really strong hits right as I was running out of bait. I was using the jumbo sized shrimp but the hook just wasn't setting. It's probably the 3/0 circle hook so perhaps I need to try a bigger 5/0 on the jumbo shrimp. Finially around 7:30 I used all of the 3 dz shrimp. Back to the bait shop across the street and bought another 3 dz shrimp. Not as many jumbo shrimp in this mix but it did look like alot of medium shrimp which is good.

When I returned the big bites were gone for the time being. A father and son fishing down from me caught a nice 17" (fork length) Bluefish using cut pinfish. He asked if I wanted it, I said sure. I'm going to cut and freeze it for cutbait. Right now I have plenty of ladyfish in the freezer but I want to add some bluefish and jack. Then I'll be ready for shark fishing LOL.



Anyway back to my report. Eventually I caught a nice 13" whiting, Southern Kingfish. Figured there would be more whiting since they usually travel in schools but didn't see anymore. Several more casts later I hook into a nice Black Drum straight down under the bridge. I was using the 2 hook pompano rig which I think has size 2 circle hooks. This is my first Black Drum I've ever caught so I had to check FWC regulations on size limits. (I keep a reference card in my tackle bag). Black Drum have to be at least 14" and no more than 24" total length, maximum 5 per day. You may possess one over 24". With my catch at 14.5", it qualifies as legal slot so in the cooler.





Overall I'm very happy with the drum and whiting, and I finially get to take home something that's edible for once. I also get to add some bluefish to my cutbait stock.