Surf Report CNS #3 - Lady fish & Whiting

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, me and Cody headed out to CNS for a little surf action. This time I made my own pompano rigs using 25# clear mono. These rigs are super easy to make with a dropper loop knot. My pompano rigs have two #2 owners mutu circle hooks with orange beads. Pictured below is the pompano rig.



First pitstop was Gander Mountain in Lake Mary, FL. I was there to get Fishbites and a couple sand spikes. When I asked a store employee if they had any fishbites, he said yes but it's about 3 years old and hard as a rock. They were selling it 50% off, which is still a ripoff for a product so old and unusable. Jokingly I said if I wanted a bag of rocks I would've gone to HomeDepot. I thanked the guy for at least being honest with me and left Gander with a couple sand spikes.

Second stop was 38 Live Bait co in New Smyrna, near the North Causeway. I got my 2 dozen medium shrimp and noticed they sell Fishbites. Their stock was much softer and fresh. I grabbed a bag of EZ Shrimp pink to go along with my live shrimp.

We finially arrived at Canaveral Seashore around 3pm and parked in lot 3. I started with just pieces of shrimp on my pompano rigs. The surf bite began immediately, my first cast I caught a lady fish. Next we caught a couple small whitings that we let go. Then after a few casts, I started adding a small piece of fishbites on the hook with the shrimp. Now I was hooking whiting in almost every cast. The last hour I was so busy rebaiting my hooks and reeling in fish that my son had to help me. He had a blast seeing all the fish and being my little helper. There were alot of birds around and seemed to be alot of baitfish. Noticed a few nice schools of finger mullet swimming on the beach as the waves washed up but I didn't have my castnet with me.

We were there for about three hours, during which I caught 7 whiting and 2 lady fish. The lady fish will be used for cut bait since they are too boney to eat.

Surf Fishing @ CNS #3 - Whiting

I decided to try my luck at surf fishing for the first time. My son and I went to Canaveral National Seashore (CNS) for a couple hours before they closed at 8PM. On the way there, I stopped by 38 Live Bait and grabbed some live medium shrimp. With 2 dozen shrimps we headed out to the beach. We parked in Lot #3 at CNS and hauled the gear out to the beach. With two rods, I loaded live shrimp on #2 size Owners Mutu hooks. I noticed the bite seemed to be pretty consistant but whatever it was, it was stealing the bait off my hook. So I downsized the size of bait by using pieces of shrimp instead of the whole shrimp. Once I tried that, I was pulling in whiting pretty good. The whiting I caught were small, but I did see a large whiting swimming right up on the beach as the waves came up. I walked up to see what it was and it's eyes looked up at me, then swooosh it quickly darted back into the ocean.

All together I took home 3 whiting and I even had some leftover shrimp to freeze for bait next time. Cody had a blast playing on the beach, and he wants to go back again. It really makes it nice that I can watch him play and fish at the same time. We had the whole beach to ourselves and it was a beautiful day. Next time I'll bring some pre-tied double hook rigs and perhaps some Fishbites for whiting bait. I'd also like to try some cut bait out there next time.

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.

Personal Best - Big Catch Longnose Gar 20 lb 8 oz

Last night I was at CS Lee Park with a full arsenal. I brought with me some frozen cut bait and nightcrawlers to get started fishing. Once I had lines in the water, it was time to chum up some baitfish. With oatmeal and small pieces of bread, I threw the mix out in the shallow water by the shore. After 15-20 minutes, I grabbed my castnet to see if I can catch some live bait. It only took a few good casts and I had plenty of mud minnows. I used my light action rod to catch a few live bluegills too. Towards the end of the night I switched over to live bait and nightcrawlers. After the switch, I seemed to get alot more bites on live bait. I missed a few big ones too. One almost dragged my rod in the water because my drag wasn't set right.

Well anyways, it was the end of my night and I had another bite. After I made sure the hook was set, this guy was really pulling. I thought my drag was too loose or something, but no, it was just a big fish trying to get away. This one I fought a good couple minutes. I thought it was a big catfish the way it splashed around in the middle of the river but once I got a good look at it, it was a big Longnose Gar. Still a pretty cool catch since I haven't seen one of these in awhile. It's been a long time since I've caught a Longnose Gar, my previous one was about 9 LB almost a year ago. I can catch Florida Gar any given night, but they don't get any bigger than 4-5 LB. The Longnose Gar, though, can be common in the 5-15 lb range and the Florida record is 41 LB.

This Longnose Gar was 54" long and 20 LB 8 Oz, which qualifies for another Big Catch certificate from the FWC. The minimum requirements for the longnose is 20 lb and/or 50" long. Looks like I'll be sending in another application soon. =)

Location: C.S. Lee Park
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu 5/0 hook on carolina rig - 3 oz sinker

Species: Longnose Gar
Weight: 20 LB 8 OZ
Bait: live bluegill

Big Catch Program & Perseid Meteor Shower

Every year in late July and early August you can observe the Perseid Meteor Shower, a fascinating show displayed by rock and dust fragments left behind by the comet Swift-Tuttle. As the fragments enter the Earth's atmosphere, they burn up creating a streak of light across the sky. This year, the peak activity is expected on August 13, 2011. A few nights ago while fishing at CS lee park I witnessed several meteors streaking across the sky. The skies were clear and it was a new moon so I could see everything. When there's a full moon, however, it will make meteor observing difficult.

On another topic, a few months ago on May 15th I caught a monster Channel Catfish that weighed about 15 LB. This size qualified for a "Big Catch" recognition by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. So I mailed in my free application and about 2 months later I received this beautiful full-color certificate, personalized with my name and details about the catch. 15 LB is actually the minimum qualifying size for a Channel Catfish and I think the Largemouth Bass minimum size is 8 LB, so earning these certificates isn't easy.

More FWC Big Catch Program details:
http://myfwc.com/fishing/freshwater/fishing-tips/angler-recognition

Channel Catfish 6 lb 10 oz - CS Lee Park

I'm back from vacation! Dealing with fishing withdrawals all week I quickly cured that by getting some rods in the water down by CS Lee Park. It must have been around midnight by the time me and Kyle got setup. There wasn't much action throughout the night there. We were actually thinking about switching spots but I decided to just stick it out where we were already posted. And with my patience, I was rewarded with a really nice catfish. Sometime around 1:30AM I got a nice hit and a great fight from a 6 lb 10 oz catfish. This cat was pulling line like crazy, haven't had a catfish fight like that in months. Got it in the cooler and was ready for more. But that was the only fish from CS Lee Park. On the way home we stopped at Mullet Lake Park by the dock where Kyle caught another small catfish, too small to keep though.

Location: C.S. Lee Park
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu size 2 hook on carolina rig - 1 oz sinker

Species: Channel Catfish
Weight: 6 LB 10 OZ
Bait: nightcrawlers

One more catfish before the roadtrip

Due to a power outage at my house and a week long vacation, this post was delayed for 9 days. The events in this post happened on the evening of 7/18/11.

Me and Kyle setout for a final trip before I was leaving to pickup my son from his moms' house in Ohio and visit family in Indiana. I believe we started around 6-7PM at CS Lee Park. It was still light out but we were waiting for sundown. No bites or anything for awhile. In fact, the bites didn't start until it was dark. I ended up catching a nice little 1 lb 4 oz catfish after sundown. I got another catfish too, but it was too small to keep. Back in the water it swam away, perhaps I'll get him another day. :)

So when I got home around 10PM, I noticed the street lights were out and all the houses were dark. A transformer was blown which is normally no big deal. But the sucky part is we had to finish getting ready to leave for our roadtrip. On top of that, the power didn't even come back until 4AM. Here's a picture of the catfish I caught. I had to use a battery operated lantern to get some light. I was basically cleaning this fish in the dark.

Location: C.S. Lee Park
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu size 2 hook on carolina rig - 1 oz sinker

Species: Channel Catfish
Weight: 1 LB 4 OZ
Bait: nightcrawlers

Saturday Night Chasing Channel Cat

Last night the moon was around 95% full. It was a stormy night from Altamonte Springs to Oviedo area but I noticed the storm was headed south-southeast. I saw a good opportunity to get some fishing done at CS Lee Park since the storms were avoiding that area completely. With two poles, one with nightcrawlers and one with cut bait, I was targeting small and large fish. I first caught a small catfish about 12" long using a nightcrawler and size 2 hook. Then my other pole caught a florida gar using a dead shiner and size 3/0 hook. All of my hooks are the Owners Mutu Light style, extremely sharp and very effective hook set ratio.
Later in the evening Kyle and Tara came out to join me by the bank while the fish were still biting. Tara came out with two Florida Gars using dead shiners. I also caught another Channel Catfish, this one was a bigger 2 lb 5 oz using nightcrawlers again with the smaller size 2 hook. It was around 3am and we called it a night, the mosquitos were getting bad and the fish were not as active. The two catfish I took home on ice.

Location: C.S. Lee Park
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu size 2 hook on carolina rig - 1 oz sinker

Species: Channel Catfish
Weight: 2 LB 5 OZ
Bait: nightcrawlers

1st Spotted Seatrout - 23.5" - 5 lb 10 oz

This morning around 7:30am I caught a monster 5 lb 10 oz Spotted Seatrout from the South Causeway using a live croaker on a 3/0 Owners Mutu Light circle hook. To my surprise there were no jacks biting at all...or bluefish for that matter. I finially got a good bite but nothing after the initial hit, so I figured it had either killed my bait or took it off my hook. Curious to check my line, I started to reel in but this trout must have been watching. After a few turns of my reel it slammed it as I was reeling up, and it was fish on baby! It didn't take long to wear itself down but I also had to figure out a way to get it up without breaking my line. The pier is a good 10-15 feet above the water, so line lifting will risk losing the fish. Plus I don't have a landing net that will reach that far below me. Fortunately there's a seawall near the front of the pier where my 4-5 foot dip net will reach, and safely scoop this fish out of the water. I just had to carefully move the fish down there as I'm holding my rod and keeping the fish in the water. Everything worked out well and we got it out. I'm glad Jevin was there to help me out, otherwise I don't know what I would've done. This is my first spotted seatrout catch, and a damn good one. It's sitting in the cooler on ice right now waiting to be cleaned for dinner. Here in Florida, the size regulations for the Spotted Seatrout is 15" to 20" with a bag limit of 4. However, you are allowed to keep (1) over 20" long. Mine was 23.5" long.

Location: South Causeway, New Smyrna Beach
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu 3/0 hook on carolina rig - 3 oz sinker

Species: Spotted Seatrout
Weight: 5 LB 10 OZ
Bait: live croaker

From Freshwater to Saltwater - Crevalle Jack / Sand Trout

Last night Kyle talked about fishing the Mullet Lake river bank again, and I haven't been there in about 6 weeks. I'm always down to fish, so we prepped our rods for freshwater and got our gear in my car to do some night bank fishing. I had the rod holders, my Coleman eletric lantern, headlamp, frozen mullet and cut shad, big hooks, everything we needed to catch some monster cats. But as soon as we started walking through the grasses to even get to the bank, we noticed the terrain was swampy and flooded with all the rainfall lately. It's the rainy season in Florida afterall, so unless there's a generous dry spell I don't foresee the bank being a good idea anytime soon. Alot of big spiders too, now I'm not a wuss when it comes to bugs but I don't do spiders. The water looked like it was ankle deep in some places as well, so we turned around and the bank fishing that night was a bust before it even started. Damn!

Determined to fish somewhere, we convinced each other to just goto New Smyrna. The high tide would be in our favor so the baitfish should be plentiful. At the time we weren't planning to stay all night either but hey, nobody says fishing is predictable. We caught what we need for bait, including nice small mullet and croakers. I figured with all the bait we had, we should use it to our advantage for a morning bite. I felt confident the bluefish and crevalle jacks would bite, especially with live mullet. The only problem was the outgoing tide was extremely strong in the morning. So strong it was dragging 3oz and 4oz pyramid sinkers. Plus fish don't even bite well when the tide is moving so fast. It was a slow morning. I was hoping the current would slow down in time for sunrise but it didn't. I still managed to catch one Crevalle Jack and then later in the morning I caught a trout. I believe this one is a Sand Trout, which is not regulated in Florida. It was over 15" long and weighed 1 lb 6 oz. This is a new species for me to catch :)

Location: South Causeway, New Smyrna Beach
Tackle: Owners Light Mutu 6/0 hook on carolina rig - 3 oz sinker

Species: Sand Trout
Weight: 1 LB 6 OZ
Bait: live croaker or mullet