Good Morning Jack Crevalle!

I was bored, very bored, so I again set out to NSB for the early bite. I got there around midnight hoping to castnet some mullet for the morning. Unfortunately, getting live bait was a difficult throughout the night, particularly live mullet. Herring were plentiful, but no croakers, spots or mullet. We finially netted about 8 mullet right before first light. These live mullet would prove to be the difference between catching fish and just fishing as the morning progressed.

It was probably around 6:30am when I got the first bite. It was a Jack Crevalle that was slightly under 4 LB and it put up a hell of a fight. Bring your "A" Game on these guys, Jack Crevalles have alot of fighting power. All together I got (3) Crevalle Jacks on the dock, all between 3-4 LB each. The biggest one weighed an even 4 LB. Live mullet was very productive today, even the bigger 6" plus size mullet were no problem for the jacks to gobble up. Big Gene was using the live herring and not even a bite. I've noticed the jacks do prefer the mullet over herring when it comes to bottom fishing with live bait. Here's a picture of my very first Crevalle Jack!

Very Slow Night @ NSB

Went to the south causeway in NSB but couldn't see any bait running, pretty much the whole night was a waste. It was a low tide for a majority of the time there though. The baitfish like the high tide because it gives them more places to hide. I did find some small blue crabs floating along the top and caught about 8 of them. The small crabs are good bait for sheepshead. I also got 2 baby mullet, about 2" long.

It was past midnight, the current had stopped and the water was calm. High tide was approaching but I couldn't stay much longer since I had to get up early the next day. It wasn't until after 1:00AM when I finially saw a shrimp lol. I threw my castnet and came up with 3 shrimp on that cast! Not bad. I saw another shrimp and came up with another 3-4 shrimp. In about 20 minutes I got 21 shrimp, two of which were huge jumbos. At least I didn't go home empty handed, I had a bucket of 21 shrimp, 5 small blue crabs and a baby mullet leftover. The shrimp I'm going to freeze since most of them are small and it's not worth cooking. I'll just use them as bait for whiting, sheepshead, or pompano.

On another note, today I received my order from Amazon. I had ordered a pack of Owner's Mutu Light Circle hooks, size 2. These are also great for whiting, sheepshead, and pompano fishing. To my surprise, they had accidently sent me 10 packs of hooks! I had only ordered 1 pack. Each pack has 46 hooks.
10 x 46 = 460 hooks :)

Butterfly Ray @ New Smyrna Beach

Bought a new 5' castnet at Walmart for about $32.00 and headed to NSB. Last night both causeways were very busy. I arrived in NSB around 10:30PM hoping to get some fishing done. The north causeway was lined up with crab traps all the way down the pier so I didn't even bother, and the south causeway had alot of people in my usual fishing spot. But the good thing about the south causeway is there is plenty of space to spread out. I walked down to the first light on the seawall and thats where I was seeing some shrimp. So thats where I started with my castnet and almost immediately I was catching shrimp. I netted about 8-10 medium to large shrimp, then walked back to the main pier to get some mullet and spots. A few runs of mullet and only a few spots netted in the bait bucket. Finially some people were leaving and I was able to get started fishing in my favorite spot, I'd say around 1:30AM. Then shortly after 3:00AM I heard my baitfeeder go off and I ran over to pick up my rod. I felt the pull and set the hook, boom FISH ON! It took a few minutes to reel in because it dove down under some rocks for a bit, but I waited and eventually it came out of the rocks so I could continue reeling. It was heavy. I was reeling against the strong current on top of it, so it felt like a really HUGE fish. Got it up to the dock but it was still too deep to get a look at it just yet. Carefully reeled it up and got a view of what was on the other end, a big Butterfly Ray was hooked in the fin. By the end of the night I still had about 11 mullet to take home for some frozen bait.

Mullet / Shrimp @ South Causeway N.S.B.

Last night I got to the South Causeway around 11:30pm. I would've got there earlier if it wasn't for the stupid I-4 construction near Deltona shutting down 2 lanes of traffic, forcing everyone to merge into a single lane. The night temps were warm, probably in the 70's all evening.

During the first hour, the shrimp were running pretty good near the lights. I caught about 10 shrimp for the bait bucket. After that, the shrimp were gone and the mullet were putting me to work. You could see the water boiling as the school of mullet were running circles around the pier. I added about 40 mullet in the bait bucket by the end of the night. Only problem was I got my castnet snagged on the barnacles again, tearing a one foot hole in it. Even with the damaged castnet, I was still able to catch a few more mullet. Now I'm debating on whether to repair the castnet or just buy a new one and keep the ripped net as a spare. Like I said, it still catches fish but may lose a couple in the process. So 40 mullet and about 10 shrimp were brought home and bagged for the freezer.

Spider Crab and baby Squid @ North Causeway NSB

Last night was a disappointing fishing trip to NSB to say the least. I started at South Causeway, attempting to castnet some mullet and shrimp for bait. The mullet can be seen but not as many as last time. I got about 3 or 4 mullet and some small Atlantic Croakers. As for shrimp, I couldn't see any at all on topwater so no shrimp last night. The current was very strong also, making careful placement and retrieve of my castnet important to avoid another barnacle snag accident.

Eventually it was about midnight so I switched it up to the North Causeway pier. Again, no shrimp but I threw my castnet a few times and caught some Ballyhoo's, a couple mullet and get this, in one cast I got 3 baby squids! They were only 1.5" long but it was cool watching them ink when I put them in my bait bucket. My only catch of the night was a Common Spider Crab shown below. This brief video shows him crawling around the pier before I threw it back in the water.

Mullet at South Causeway - NSB

Here's a baitfish report from the last two consecutive nights (April 10th and 11th) at the South Causeway in NSB. The weather has been warm with night temps of about 70 degrees. I've been arriving at 11pm and staying until about 2am.

Sunday night, April 10th, I started at the North Causeway but didn't stay long because there were some spanish people yelling and screaming to one another from opposite sides of the dock. VERY annoying! So I switched to the South Causeway, where I found small amounts of mullet running, which is more than what I've been seeing the last 3-4 weeks. I managed to castnet 5 large mullets plus a monster mullet that had to be 12" long. I also got a couple Atlantic Thread Herrings as well, also known as "greenies". My night ended when I ripped my castnet after a poor choice to cast so close to the dock. It got stuck underwater on some barnacles on the dock supports.

The next night, April 11th, I went straight to the South Causeway. Oh yeah, I bought a new, bigger castnet too. This one is 5' radius so with a perfect throw you can get a 10' spread. This time the mullet were running very thick. With a well timed toss, you could easily land 2-3 mullet in one throw. All together I came home with 32 mullet to freeze, most medium to large size. Also got 4 more of those greenies. My freezer is all stocked with bait so now it's time to catch some monster channel cats!

Shrimpin' at the North Causeway Pier - New Smyrna

Last night I took a drive to the North Causeway pier in NSB. I used my castnet to catch whatever I could find, preferably mullet fish. The mullet were not around as I'd hoped, however, the shrimp were pretty thick. I collected about 27 live shrimp to take home to eat. As I'm shrimpin', I finially spotted 2 super large mullet swimming together and was able to catch one of them in my net. It was the biggest mullet I've ever seen, probably about 12" long. I also witnessed another fisherman catch a monster redfish. He reeled it in and got it to the pier, but it broke his line when he tried to lift it out of the water. It was a big fish! He used live shrimp to catch it.

At the end of the night, I scoped out the South Causeway pier to see what was going on there. It seems to be a popular location for shrimpers that like to use long 18-20 ft dip nets and underwater lights to attract the shrimp. I also saw a couple manatees swimming near the seawall which was pretty cool. Never been that close to a wild manatee before and I've never seen them at the NSB causeways before.

Here's a photo of my boiled shrimp ready to peel and de-vein before serving cold. Alot of small ones but near the bottom you can see the biggest of them all, Sir Jumbo Shrimp. YUM!

New Smyrna - Baitfish Roundup

Last night I drove out to New Smyrna Beach at the North Causeway fishing pier. I had one thing on my mind and that was baitfish. The lack of bluegills where I normally fish has left me without bait to go catfishing. However, there's usually always schools of mullet hanging around the North Causeway pier at night, as they are attracted to the lights on the pier. So I brought my 8' castnet and was able to find small schools of black mullet swimming near the pier. With patience and good aim, I was able to castnet a total of 24 mullet in my bucket. Once I got home, the fish were seperated into ziplock freezer bags and immediately put into the freezer. I put 2-3 fish per bag so they can be used only when I need them.