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.

24 LB Stingray - South Causeway

Thursday night at South Causeway NSB I landed a huge stingray, but not before a drag pulling fight I'll never forget. As soon as it hit my live bait which was a Spot, the baitfeeder was singing. And even when I clicked off the baitfeeder, the main drag was still singing. It ran out several feet of line before I could even start pulling it in. I had to tighten the drag quite a bit, and start pulling up my rod and reeling in the slack as I let my rod down. It was heavy and I was going against the tide current, which didn't make it any easier. After about 8-10 minutes of pulling and reeling, finially got it up to the pier and saw it was a big stingray. I took it over to the wall next to the parking lot, where I could scoop it out with a landing net. It was weighed with the net, and the scale read 25 LB. The net weighs 1 LB 5 oz, so I figure the stingray was about 24 LB! I took a quick picture, though I was unable to get it turned over to get a top view of the ray. It was much easier to just leave it in the net so I could release it back. You definitly don't want to be careless while handling large rays. This ray didn't flop or whip it's tail at all, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. Always expect the unexpected. That night I had two more hooked, and they felt exactly like the big stingray. Though these two broke off my line during the fight.

Location: South Causeway, New Smyrna Beach
Tackle: Gamakatsu 6/0 octopus circle hook on a Carolina rig w/ 3 oz sinker

Species: Southern Stingray
Weight: approx 24 LB
Bait: live Spot

A couple Butterfly Rays - Man Jumps Off Bridge

The trip started with Kyle, Zack and myself at the Mullet Lake river bank. It was a stormy night in central Florida though, so after about an hour at the bank we packed up and left because we noticed lightning getting closer. Remember, lightning can hit up to 15 miles away from the storm. It's not something to ignore, especially with four 7 foot lightning rods in the water.

The night was young and I still wanted to fish, we re-grouped in the parking lot and talked about going to New Smyrna where we can fish underneath a bridge. The problem was I didn't have my castnet for bait, but we took our chances anyway. I figured someone would be there with some bait we could either get for free or give them a couple bucks. Luckily the old man Gene was there. This old guy is serious about fishing, he literally has about 8-10 poles in the water, a large cooler, several live bait buckets in the water, at least 2 castnets, and probably some other shit you wouldn't normally carry out to the pier. He carries all his stuff on an extra large rolling cart that looked custom made. Anyways, I'm on good terms with the guy since I've fished with him before. Sometimes he can be grumpy as hell but last night he was nice enough to castnet some bait for us. With some live spots, I caught a Butterfly Ray (pictured below). Later in the night, Kyle caught another Butterfly Ray too.



Last evening, a man apparently jumped from the SR 44 bridge that goes over the South Causeway and landed hard on the ground just missing a small pond in the parking lot. It was probably a 70 foot drop from where he jumped. I didn't see him fall myself, but another witness said it looked like a trashbag and heard a loud thump. The witness said after the man hit the ground, he hit it so hard that his shoes flew up off his feet. As the guy was laying on the ground, they say he was still breathing but his spine was all messed up. It was a very awkward situation for witnesses including myself. I've never been that close to something like that and it just amazes me how people do harm to themselves. A helicopter had to airlift the man to the hospital, if he survived I don't know. I haven't been able to find any local news about the incident yet.

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.

Schooling Threadfin Shad at Mullet Lake Park Dock

I took a short trip to the Mullet Lake Park boat dock. I was bringing my castnet, a loaf of bread, and a couple frozen mullet. At arrival I proceeded to throw small pieces of bread on the water and waited to see if anything was hitting it. Nothing was going after the bread so I just went ahead and tossed the castnet out. When I retrived the net, I had just caught a bunch of threadfin shad. Just about every cast was catching them too, they were really thick. Most were small about 2-3" long, but I did catch two big ones about 6" long.



Threadfin shad, small pelagic plankton feeders, are native to the central and southeastern United States. Like gizzard shad, threadfin sport an elongated dorsal ray. They are a deep bodied, laterally compressed fish. Its mouth is terminal and the upper jaw does not project out, which is typical of gizzards. Their fins generally have a yellowish tint, especially the tail. Coloration is grey to blue along the back and they sport a dark spot on the shoulder. Threadfins form large schools. They generally are shallow water feeders and work the surface at dawn and dusk. A smallish fish, these shad rarely exceed six or seven inches. Like gizzard shad they are sensitive to temperature changes and oxygen levels. Die offs are frequent in late summer and the fall.

When water temperatures reach the upper sixties, typically in May or June, threadfin spawn. They broadcast their eggs over submerged objects in shallow water. The sticky eggs adhere to the structure. Females may lay upwards of 24,000 eggs. Life expectancy seldom exceeds 2 to 3 years.

After catching some threadfin shad, I finially started doing some fishing with the cut mullet. Both lines in the water for about an hour and nothing. Called it a night and went home to freeze the threadfins.

8 LB Channel Catfish @ Mullet Lake Park

A very warm evening last night, with temperatures in the mid to lower 70's overnight. We started fishing around 11pm and really didn't get any good bites throughout the night. I started out with a piece of cut mullet and a cut shiner, but eventually rebaited both lines with just cut mullet. Finially around 2am I had a good bite down on the far right side. Fish on! I reeled in a nice 8 LB Channel Catfish. The crazy part is the hook wasn't even set in the mouth. Once we had it secured with the fish grips, I proceeded to dehook it but as I'm checking out the line, the hook with the bait still intact came right out.

I decided to keep this one, so when I got home I removed the huge steaks of meat off and put them in the fridge for lunch the next day. I cooked the fish in my frydaddy and it turned out fantastic. The trimmed fillets were coated with Great Value brand Italian bread crumbs before being dunked in my frydaddy. On a few pieces, I added creole seasoning which added a spicey kick. Yummy!

Bass & Bluegill at Bear Pond - A Mimic Minnow Review

First I want to write a quick review of the Mimic Minnow Silver Shiner. This small 1/8 oz lure arrived this week and has been deadly on bass at Colonial Grand Apts in Lake Mary. I've been catching about 2-3 bass everytime I go there on the Mimic Minnow. A total of 7 bass on this one lure, and it's still in good shape. The biggest bass was 1 LB 2 OZ.

Bear Pond, Seminole State Forest. I've been there twice this week. The first trip was with my grandparents and my son Cody on Wednesday afternoon. We arrived around 3:30pm. Using live large shiners, we tried catching some largemouth bass. We almost had a couple smallies but they both popped off when we got them up to the water surface. We did catch a bunch of bluegill using trout worms on a size 10 hook. I did bring home 5 handsized gills to eat, which were very good fried with cornmeal, flour, and egg.
On Friday morning I arrived at Bear Pond again with Kyle and Zack around 10:30am. I caught 2 largemouth bass this time after only 3 live shiners. I also caught a ton of bluegill using worms and hotdog, released the small ones and kept 7 good sized gills for eating.

The problem with Bear Pond now is an alligator has become interested when people are around. It actually swims up close to where we're fishing now. My guess is others have been feeding it so now it looks forward to people fishing. I wish others would pay more attention to the sign that says "please don't feed or molest the alligator" but of course you have those people that have no common sense and/or don't care. If I ever witness someone feeding or teasing the gator I'm going to report them to FWC and hope they get busted while they're out there. The more this gator gets used to people, the more dangerous it will be to fish there.

Personal Best - Channel Catfish 14 LB 6 OZ!

Another monster pulled out of the water at Mullet Lake Park river bank. Last night I fought a monster Channel Catfish that put up more fight than anything I've experienced before. At around 11:25PM, the fish hooked itself on my line. Feeling it tug my line I tried to reel in but it was still pulling my drag out. I let it shake and splash around, then tightened the drag to gain ground on it. I got it about 15 feet from the bank, stopped to turn on my headlight so I could see but then my fish veered to the left. I had it in a bad position and needed to turn it back around towards me. It finially cooperated with this idea and thats when Zack jumped down to snap it's jaw with my Team Catfish Floating Fish-Grip. This yellow Fish-Grip has been a true asset for my tackle bag, it snaps on their jaws and won't let go until you do. It weighs only 4oz and even has a hole on the handle for my Berkley Fish Scale. Doesn't get any easier than this for securing a fish and weighing it. This catfish is my personal best, weighing at 14 LB 6 OZ. Though I'm going to go ahead and round up to 15 LB and claim my first Big Catch certificate. =)

Last night the moon was 98% full, the day before a complete full moon. Night temperature was about 68 degrees. The water levels were much better too since it rained a few days ago. The bait was frozen cut mullet. I fished with a 6/0 and 8/0 octopus circle hook, catching the big one on the 6/0 hook.