Flat Bridge Slam! Small Hammerhead Shark!

Hit the flat bridge at night again. Used some frozen ladyfish as cutbait and caught a nice variety. First fish of the night was a small Hammerhead shark that was no bigger than 15" long. Gave him a quick release back in the water so one day this little guy will hopefully grow to be a 12' tarpon eating machine.
Next fish was a small hardhead catfish. Then 15 minutes later I got another good hit and came to be a bluefish. All fish were caught within 45 minutes.

CNS Surf Report Lot #4

Hit the surf with Zack today while my son was at school. Went down to lot 4 with our cup of live sand fleas, couple dozen shrimp and live mullet. Zack bought all the bait today so I wasn't complaining. Zack used live mullet for awhile but didn't get any hits. Shrimp didn't even catch anything today. In fact for the first hour the fishing was really slow, not much going on. Then I tried casting a little further, out where the waves were first breaking on the sandbar. I was using live sandfleas and hooked into my first fish, but lost it close to shore. Threw out my line again and hooked the first fish of the day, a nice 11" pompano. Next cast I got a double, small pompano and small bluefish. Eventually we just used live sand fleas and were nailing the pompano and whiting. I had a really good fight from a 13" pompano. Zack got in on the action with a couple whiting, and finially he finished the day with his first 12" pompano.

Tally today for me was 2 whiting, 3 pompano, 1 bluefish. Zack caught 2 whiting and a pompano.

CNS Surf Fishing Lot #4

Lately I've been reading a few surf reports coming out of CNS and liking what I see. Pomps are still hitting, along with the usual whiting and blues. Skates, stingrays, occassional jack and shark in the mix...sounds pretty exciting right! So instead of hitting the usual inshore spots, I switched it up to surf rigs and surf gear.
I still had some leftover frozen clam so I set that aside. Also grabbed a bag of frozen shrimp. Remember 38 Live was out of live shrimp yesterday? Well today they were out of medium shrimp, so I had to buy the small shrimp. Most of the small shrimp were pretty worthless. It didn't look like 3 dozen either. I checked to see if they had any frozen sandfleas, of course not. Bah, not happy with 38 Live Bait lately.
I remembered there was a baitshop not far from the entrance to CNS. I've never been there so decided to check it out for sandfleas. This place is called End of the Line, they sell LIVE sandfleas $4 a dozen. Expensive yes, but worth it. It definitly looked like the guy hooked me up with more than 2 dozen too. The fleas were big and very active. I will definitly be back to this shop in the future.

Parked at lot 4 to find alot of fishermen. I did find one spot away from everyone else. Some bites here and there, but only on the shrimp. First fish was a small blue that hit my shrimp on the surface right after casting. Back in the water little guy.



Fished for awhile, checking baits here and there. Nothing really going on. I was walking to my leftside pole and just about to grab it to check the bait, then it starts peeling out. Right place at the right time, quickly got the rod in my hands and knew it was fish on. Pulled in my first keeper Pompano 13" to the fork of tail. This one was caught on clam pretty close to the beach.



Some more time passed, few nibbles here and there. Ending up losing one 2oz weight when my line snapped during a cast...so I downsized to just two rods. One was working sand fleas and the other with shrimp. Shrimp wasn't getting very many bites at this point, but all of a sudden the sandfleas were getting chewed by whiting. I caught 6 whiting all on sandfleas, kept 3 of the bigger ones for the cooler. Biggest whiting was 15.5" long caught by Cody!

Happy New Years! NSB South Causeway

Found a break in the chilly weather so Cody and I geared up for a little sunrise fishing. Woke up early around 5:30am and headed east. First pitstop at 38 Live Bait to find they were out of live shrimp, kind of strange. Didn't matter, thats not what I was after anyway. I got a couple dozen small finger mullet, really nice size too. Biggest were about 4" long. I wanted some fiddler crabs but they were out of those too. So with the finger mullet we headed to our spot. Today I picked South Causeway as our first destination. Some guys were at the spot I originally wanted so me and Cody setup on the deadend of the pier. We had the whole spot to ourselves which was nice. Saw a beautiful clear sunrise so I took a photo.



We were getting bites but it was those pesky small blues eating the tails off our mullet. Everytime I'd see our rod bounce and go check the bait, only to find a half consumed mullet on the hook. Finially hooked one and I let Cody reel it in. Only fish of the day too. My son was bragging how he caught 1 and I didn't of course. LOL



We tried a few other spots, the one boat dock across the road from bowling alley and then we tried Sleepy Hollow. No luck at either spot. Found another tick on my pants after walking through Sleepy Hollow again. No bueno.

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.

Flat Bridge Sunday Evening

Sunday evening I fished the flat bridge with Zack for a few hours from 6-9pm. We picked up 3 dozen live shrimp and caught some undersized fish. Fishing with shrimp is definitly busy work with all the pinfish, spots, croakers stealing the bait off our hooks. If you leave your line in the water for more than a few minutes and don't notice any taps, then it's likely your bait is gone.

A guy fishing down from us caught a couple small blacktip sharks during our time there. It's amazing how many sharks I've seen come up from this bridge from bonnetheads, hammerheads and blacktips.

Sorry no pictures on this trip. The fish weren't that big anyway so everything was thrown back to grow.

Small Crevalle Jack
Small Bluefish
Small Catfish
Lady Fish

Surf Report CNS #4 - Bluefish and Whiting

Went to CNS with Kyle today and parked in lot #4 around 11am. A nice day at the beach with clear skies. Though the current was strong, 4 oz weights were still getting moved around. The waves were about 2-3 feet.

I used cut ladyfish on a 4/0 circle hook and caught a couple nice bluefish, about 16" and 12" to the fork. My other rods had frozen dead shrimp and caught some whiting, one of which was a keeper.

Total Tally:
Brad-
2 bluefish
4 whiting

New Smyrna Morning Bite - Bluefish / Butterfly Ray

Me and Kyle planned to fish the morning bite at New Smyrna so we arrived a few hours before first light. Our 1st priority was to get some baitfish so we spotted some schools of finger mullet. Most of the mullet we caught were about 3" long, perfect finger size. Kyle caught a few bigger mullet and I netted 2 live shrimp when the current slowed down. We fished our usual spot at the end of the pier and waited for morning. When morning came, we waited some more. The bites were not coming as we had hoped. No crevalle jacks, no redfish, no drag singing bites. I did get a Bluefish up on the dock and Kyle caught a Butterfly Ray, but that was it. Well, another day another outcome hopefully. Thats the way fishing is, one day your on top of a feeding frenzy and the next day your wondering if there's any fish at all.

14" Bluefish @ NSB

Fished the sunrise this morning at NSB and got alot of hits from blues. It was the smaller blues this time and they were biting the mullet in half leaving me with a fish head. I did manage to catch the 14" bluefish below. Kyle got himself a nice Crevalle Jack too.



Also here's a 20" Spotted Seatrout that was caught and donated to me. I think it was caught on a live spot.

South Causeway NSB - Whiting, Bluefish, Jacks, Tarpon

Last night at NSB was full of surprises throughout the night. I arrived at 9:00PM and Kyle/Tara came about 10:30 in the evening. I purchased 50 small shrimp from the bait shop and started out with 2/0 Kahle hooks. Not long after Kyle and Tara came out is when I caught my first Whiting! It was small but still a keeper. While I left to get some ice and drinks, Tara caught a small stingray and another kid caught a bigger whiting. Understanding that whiting usually travel in schools, I switched to a dual hook dropper loop rig and downsized my hooks. Now I was using two #2 Owners Mutu Light circle hooks with small pieces of fresh dead shrimp. I caught croaker, pinfish, and finially another whiting that was similar size to the other one I caught. Here's the two Whiting I caught...



Then around 1 AM we were there to witness someone catch a Tarpon very close to the pier. It put on a display of splashing jumps and vigorous head shaking as they grabbed the dropnet which helps raise fish from high piers. As soon as they got it up, they had to quickly dehook it and let it go. These tarpon don't fare well out of the water so they were in a hurry to get it back ASAP. Not only that, it's illegal to possess or harvest tarpon without a permit which runs about $50. Here's Big Gene holding the tarpon a few seconds before it's release...



Me and Kyle stuck it out all night at the pier. We were curious to see what the first morning bite would bring. Big Gene was telling us about the exploding jacks and blues running early in the morning around sunrise, so we wanted to get in on the action. He hooked us up with some tips and got our lines ready. The breakfast menu was live mullet and pinfish fished on the bottom. Just after 6:30am it started, and for about 20 minutes the fishing was INSANE! Gene pulled in 3 Crevalle Jacks and 1 Bluefish. I landed 2 Bluefish, one of which was the biggest one at 21" long! The 21" blue is my personal best too. Kyle hooked up with a fish but it ran over to the pilings and broke his line. He got to feel the big strong pull though and said it almost took his rod in the water. The long stay at the pier was exhuasting but I'd say it was worth it. We saw whiting, small catfish, small stingrays, tarpon, some bluefish, and crevalle jacks.

1st Bluefish @ South Causeway

Another night at the South Causeway, but first I made it out to 38 Live Bait before they closed to get some live shrimp. I picked up 2 dozen medium shrimp for $5 and headed to the pier. The first corner of the pier was crowded this time so I walked to the backend. Started out using shrimp but eventually caught some live spots and pinfish with my castnet. I've had better luck using a live spot hooked through the tail on a 4/0 circle hook. Around 2:00am I had a runner, my baitfeeder was going off but when I grabbed the rod it was gone. Then again 2:30 in the morning my baitfeeder went off again, this time I caught a bluefish that was about 16" long. All this action came from the live spots. Spots must be a favorite of bluefish because another guy caught a bluefish after I did.