Daytime NSB and Night Flat Bridge Report 12/19

Knowing there's a major cold front coming this weekend, we probably won't be fishing on Saturday. In fact it's the first Saturday in 6-7 weeks that I won't fish, wow! I want to go but forecast says the daytime high is only 60, with nighttime lows in the 30's. Plus I really don't want to get sick right before Christmas.
Wednesday was one of the last warm days before the cold front hits central Florida. I decided it would be cool to spend the whole day fishing while it's still warm. Thankfully it was an especially early release day at my sons' school too, which is getting ready for their 2-week winter break. So at 1 o'clock I picked him up and went home to get everything loaded up. After a short errand to UPS Store and backtrack to the house because my son forgot his DS....lol....we finially made it out to 38 Live Bait around 3:30. I got some fiddlers and shrimp then headed to the north causeway. I started with fiddlers, no bites. Used some live shrimp, then Cody and I caught a stingray back to back. That was it. A good hour passed with no bites, even on live shrimp. While out there I snagged a seahorse while checking my bait. It was tangled in some seaweed on my hook. Don't worry the seahorse wasn't harmed or poked. Cody was especially excited to see his first seahorse. I let him use the net to put it back in the water.







With the slow bite during the daytime trip, I still had alot of live shrimp and fiddlers leftover. Invited my friend Zack to fish the Flat Bridge after I got Cody to bed. The action out there was a little better. Immediately jigged with gulp swimming mullet and caught small blues like crazy. I had 3 on the bridge in no time. After the third one, my live shrimp rod gets a bite and it's a nice sized whiting. In the cooler it went. Waiting awhile for another bite. Zack jigged with his gulp swimming mullet, and caught a small 12" flounder, barely legal! In the cooler. LOL
Bite slowed again after that, couldn't even get the small blues to bite. Left there with 2 fish in the cooler. Hey I'll take what I can get at this point.

12" Flounder at South Causeway

Started in New Smyrna this morning around 6am. First stop was the South Causeway in where my old friend Dave was already setup on the dock. Dave is the guy I learned all about shad fishing on the St Johns river. It was a very foggy morning but as the sun came up the fog lifted pretty quick. I targeted the shallow area next to the parking lot with a Gulp new penny shrimp. First cast, I landed a 12" flounder!



Nothing else the rest of the day LOL. We moved around to different spots, even tried Sleepy Hollow without any luck. By the way, Sleepy Hollow is infested with ticks. After walking through the woods I checked our cloths, found 1 tick on my pants and 2 ticks on my sons' cloths. Gross!

Finished off our trip by going back to the South Causeway to see how Dave was doing. He was fishing with mussels for sheepshead, I swear it looked like a big booger on his hook. He said he caught 3 big sheeps though, with alot of small ones thrown back. I bought a couple dozen fiddler crabs to try my luck at this, but only caught 2 mangrove snappers. I think I got there too late cause the current was ripping so fast. Dave said when the tide starts going slack, thats when the sheepshead will come in to feed. So with that said, I will just have to try again next week. :)

Flat Bridge / Sleepy Hollow / NSB Report

Been fishing with artificials lately trying to master the art of jigging. The past few Saturdays I've had off work as well, so I've been taking my son Cody out early in the morning and fishing at first light. My favorite soft plastics are the DOA paddletails, gulp swimming mullet and gulp shrimp. We normally start at the flat bridge and then work our way to sleepy hollow, and then finially New Smyrna area. I really haven't caught much to talk about besides some small trout and a few blues. I did catch my first inshore Barracuda near the culvert side of sleepy hollow. It was a small one but still a first species for me.



The trout fishing has been hot as of late even if they are all undersized. I can usually find them chasing bait at night near bridge and pier lights. They seem to strike just about anything you put in front of them too. Small blues are in the mix as well.

However the flounder bite has slowed tremendously in the river. My friend Kyle caught a couple in New Smyrna, but reports from the famous "flattie" bridge in Port Orange have little to show. Next fishing trip I'm going to try a little different approach and go with a tandem rig like I do with the St Johns shad run. I'm also going to jig a live finger mullet pinned to the bottom. I've been reading up on successful flounder fishing and here's a few notes that came out of my research..

Use live bait, finger mullet in the 4-5 inch range. Mud minnows also work.
Don't use such a long leader between the swivel and hook. 12 inches will help keep the bait down and not allow it to get too high in the water column.
Don't just cast into one area as flounder are ambush predaters. fan cast and slowly bring the line in. pick it up a little and let it drop this way your covering ground.
Flounder like to be in the sand, but like to have some structure next to them.
Use smaller hooks- 1/0, 2/0 maybe even a 3/0. Kahle hooks are preferred.

Flat Bridge Monday - Day & Night Report

With Monday off work, I took advantage of the nice weather and headed to the flattie bridge. On the way I realized that I forgot my jigheads at home, so I made a quick pitstop at Gander Mountain in Lake Mary. I grabbed some 1/8th red jigheads and browsed the DOA shad tails. Grabbed a pack of keylime and nite glow. Also grabbed a pack of DOA nite glow 3" shrimp. The nite glow color has been on my wishlist for a few days, I've been reading that it's deadly for snook and trout around dock lights at night. Also there have been good reports of snook being caught in the past week and large numbers of trout in the area.

So I finially arrived late morning after 10am and started tossing the DOA shad tail keylime. No hits. Put on a gulp new penny shrimp and again no hits. Crossed traffic to the other side of the bridge and first cast caught a 13" trout on new penny gulp shrimp. Few nibbles for the rest of the morning but no fish. Headed back home to rest and pickup my son from school.

Fast forward to evening, I head out again to try my luck on the nite glow lures I bought earlier today. I started in my usual spot but no hits. Crossed over to the trout hot spot and immediately noticed large schools of mullet close to the lights. Tossed a DOA nite glow 3" shrimp and caught a 13" trout. I wasn't getting very many hits on the shrimp, so I switched to a DOA nite glow shad tail and caught two more 13" trout back to back. Next cast I caught a spot croaker.









Action slowed on the paddletail so I switched to my topwater Badonk-A-Donk. To my rightside something was busting in the lights and I thought it would be larger trout. Nope, after aiming a few casts I hook into a huge ladyfish. One of the bigger ones I've seen. It was almost 2 ft long, 19" to the fork of tail. It was really fast in the water and it even went under the bridge briefly. I had to turn it around and wear it down a little. Not sure how I initially hooked it because when I pulled it up I realized that one of the treble hooks was just snagged near it's dorsal fin. Regardless it still counts! The ladyfish was chunked up for cutbait and with that I caught 2 small gafftopsail catfish.







Finished the evening with DOA nite glow shad tail again. I caught another ladyfish that was released. Then I hook into another 13" trout. Last fish of the night was a bluefish that was about 12-13" to the fork. All fish were released except for the large ladyfish that was used for cutbait. All together I got 4 undersized seatrout, 2 ladyfish, 1 bluefish, 1 spot croaker and 2 gafftopsail catfish. Nice variety mixed in there which makes for a very good night on the water. Plus now I'm a believer in DOA nite glow!

Windy Halloween at Flat Bridge

It was pretty chilly at the bridge late morning when I arrived around 10:30am. Temps were in the upper 50's and gradually increasing to the 60's, but the wind chill made it feel colder. I focused on just using artificials today, starting with the DOA CAL Shad Tail and caught a small Seatrout about 12" long.



Then I switched to a new penny Gulp shrimp, and caught another small Seatrout about the same size.



I only stayed for an hour and 15 minutes, the wind was getting stronger and too much to handle. The two seatrouts I caught were released.

Flat Bridge Monday - Lady's Night

It was lady's night at the flat bridge Monday evening. Kyle and I fished for a couple hours at night. Alot of busting going on in the water, I thought it was trout so I told Kyle we need to try a freeline first with some live baby mullet. Turns out it wasn't trout, it was just a bunch of ladyfish splashing around. Nothing caught on the big rods, but I did bring my jigging rod this time. Gave it a go with Gulp Swimming Mullet (white) and kept getting alot of bites on retrieve. However something kept chewing the tails off my softbait so I pulled out this bad boy from my tackle box:

Bomber Badonk-A-Donk Saltwater Grade Bait (Silver Flash / Blue Back)



This is a floating topwater lure that rattles like a panicked baitfish. With this lure I landed 2 ladyfish and lost several more during battle. Don't ask me how you shake off a treble hook stuck in your lip, but ladyfish can do it. By the end of the night I took home two ladies with me and put them in the freezer. LOL

Midday at Flat Bridge - 10 LB JACKS!

Another day off work so I dropped my son off at school and headed to the Flat Bridge with hopes of flounder on the menu. Arrived there around 10:00AM and noticed it was incoming high tide with a turnaround coming soon. Last night I rounded up some live baby mullet and kept them on air. I collected about a dozen finger mullet and thats all I needed. I got them from the North Causeway in NSB where I fished with Kyle last night, but we didn't catch anything. The mullet were not that thick either.

Anyway back to the Flat Bridge report... So shortly after getting my first line wet, I had a small nibble with a live baby mullet on the bottom, but the action quickly disappeared. Also my attempt at jigging gulp shrimp today was a failure due to the strong wind and current. I just couldn't hold bottom where I wanted it to. So I cut the jighead off and freelining a live baby mullet for about an hour. Not one bite on the freeline either. I just put that rod aside and grabbed my 10 footer out of the car. LOL Yeah baby! Now I'm rocking two rods with live baby mullet fished on the bottom with a 1 oz pyramid sinker. I'm using 30lb fluorocarbon leader line and a 1/0 Owners Light Mutu circle hook.

Around 11:00am I noticed a few schools of bait running frantically and it looked like something busting them. But the topwater explosions weren't that big, probably just some small jacks I figured. Sure enough a few minutes later they returned and I had my line in the water at the right place at the right time....zoooooooooom. The baitfeeder sang to me for awhile but this fish was small enough to reel in quickly. It was just a little Crevalle Jack, under 12" long but it sure had an appetite as it swallowed a decent sized mullet.

Next cast I had a strong runner that wasn't stopping. It definitly felt like a much bigger Crevalle Jack. The damn thing took my line straight towards the other fishermans lines to my left, I'm thinking to myself "oh great this fish is gonna get me in trouble". Fortunately for the fish it jetted under the bridge and broke me off. It had me in a bad position anyway. Even though I lost that one, it only broke my leader line so I still had my weight attached. Besides now I'm pumped and ready for more.

With a live mullet in the water, I'm tying a new rig on my pole that just broke off. I didn't even get a chance to finish and the baitfeeder goes off. Another big jack! This one went out then raced back towards me. This one I got to fight a little longer than the first one, and I actually got to see it for a glance. But knowing the crevalle's they don't give up that easy. Another dash and it went under the dang bridge again. I held on as much as I could but it just wouldn't turn around. The line rubbed against something sharp and eventually broke the main line. My whole rig including weight was gone. By now the bait were busting all over the place with bigger explosions on the water. In fact you could actually see a few jacks in the water racing each other to the next victim. However, now I had two broken rigs and no lines in the water either.

I raced to tie knots and get both lines in the water again. Then waited, not long though. Heard the bait busting coming from my left, split second later the big 10 foot rod in front of me gets a big hit. Quickly grabbed it and felt the power of another big jack on the end. Seconds into my fight, I hear my other rod going off with what sounds like another big jack. The jacks are still busting fish out in the water too! Not much I can do but handle the 10' rod I grabbed first. It's taking me to the right so thats where I start walking. As I'm walking, I pass my other rod that is still singing but I can't do nothing about it. hahaha. So I get this badass jack tired out eventually and there's absolutely no way I'm bringing it over the bridge rails. It was way too heavy. A guy comes along and notices my other rod. I ask him to go ahead and see if he can reel it in because I'm busy at the moment. He was cool. He grabs the rod and fights it for a short while but the main line breaks. Oh well, by now I'm getting my big jack up the rocks and successfully on the land. Whew!! My personal best Crevalle Jack! 10 LB 6 Oz and 24 inches long to the tail fork.





This trip cost me though, the same Okuma Avenger 65 that was repaired is having the same problem again. Basically the baitfeeder is a secondary drag on these reels which allows you to disengage the spool and main drag. They are ideal for live or cutbait fishing, especially when your working 2-3 rods at once. When a fish picks up the bait and runs, your suppose to hear a clicking sound. Problem now is I don't hear the clicking sound anymore. It still works fine, just without the sound to alert the bite. I've had this reel for 2 years now and it's been through alot. It's been dunked in saltwater at the beach, in the shop for a cleaning after that, then shipped to a warranty service shop to fix the absent "clicking" sound. They fixed it, but at some point during my trip today the clicking has failed again. I think alot of it is just abuse and wear on the reel itself. I have another Avenger 65 that was purchased a year ago, exact same model and it works fine with no issues.

Flat Bridge Late Friday Night

A late trip to the Port Orange bridge turned out to be a fun trip. It was Friday night with a slight chill in the air. First signs of fall/winter, though it will still be awhile. When I think of cool weather, the fall mullet run comes to mind. Thats the time to bring your castnets because schools of mullet are usually everywhere, especially at night around pier lights. Tonight I didn't bring my castnet, instead I decided to go with a frozen ladyfish fillet that we would use for cutbait. Zack came along with me tonight bringing his two rods. So we arrived around midnight and Zack's first cast soaked in the water for no more than 30 seconds when he got a runner. It put up a good fight for sure. Got it out of the water and get this....He just caught a 22" Redfish right off the bat! I was like whoa, what just happened. LOL This red was very beautiful, one side had 3 black spots and the other had 4 spots. It was within legal slot so I kept it in the cooler. When we were done with the redfish, Zack started catching catfish one after another. Then I got in on the action with a catfish too. All together I caught a catfish and a couple whiting on cut ladyfish chunks.

1st Hammerhead! Flat Bridge Thursday Night

Fished the flat bridge Thursday night for a couple hours by myself. The tide was incoming and almost slack tide. I brought some frozen ladyfish for chunking and frozen lightly salted shrimp. The salt definitly helps to keep the shrimp firm so they stay on the hook better. The fish didn't seem to care either.

Casted one rod with a chunk of ladyfish and noticed immediate taps. The taps were like something small had found a chunk that was too big for it's mouth. I waited for something to actually take the bait and bend the rod. It finially looked like something bigger was interested in the bait and possibly already hooked himself, so I grabbed the rod and fish on! I felt the power of a strong fish, this definitly wasn't a catfish. As I'm reeling, it made a couple 2-3 second bursts that took some line out. And after a brief fight, I had caught my first Hammerhead Shark! This one was 28" long too, which makes it the longest shark species I've caught so far. I've caught a few of those Bonnetheads, but it was cool to actually say I caught a hammerhead. All Hammerhead sharks are protected in Florida state waters, effective January 1st, 2012, so possession and harvest is prohibited. With that said it was safely released back in the water, I did take a quick picture though.

Port Canaveral Offshore 7/29/12

My friend Shaun at work invited me on his family boat for an offshore fishing trip this weekend. All together is was Shaun, his sister Tiffany and husband Todd, Shauns dad who owns the boat, and then their friend who is a fishing guide that knows the waters pretty well. Including myself there were six people on the boat. The guide brought all the tackle we needed. Plus we were just trolling, so I didn't have to bring my fishing pole.

We launched at Port Canaveral around 7:30AM and man was the ride out bumpy. I bruised my back, bottom and elbow pretty good trying to brace myself against the impact as we cruised about 35mph for 30 minutes. Our first fishing spot was an artificial reef about 25-30 miles out. The guide setup the trolling lines, each with a mahi rig tipped with frozen ballyho. As soon as we started trolling a line was hit and fish on! Todd grabbed the rod and reeled in the first fish of the day, a big Barracuda.



No more hits for a couple hours, we probably circled that reef at least a dozen times. It was time to switch location, so we reeled in all the rods and headed to deeper water. We stopped about 38-40 miles out as we hit the gulfstream. Let me tell you the water out there is so blue and pretty that you just want to jump right in. Our guide friend put the rods back out in the water and we began trolling again. The only fish caught out there was a Bonito Tuna that Shauns' dad reeled in and released after a quick photo. If it was me, I probably would've kept it for sharks. Bonito is actually at the top of the list for shark bait. It's a really red and bloody meat that sharks can't resist.



Again, several hours and no more hits. The topwater action was really slow today so we slow trolled back towards inland. We returned to the reef where we started and circled several times. Another Barracuda hit a line and this time it was Tiffany's turn to reel it in. This would turn out to be the last fish in the boat for the day.



A closeup of the Barracuda teeth...


Back to trolling the reef and another hit. Guess what it was my turn! This fish was was taking line at will though, tightened the drag as much as we safely could but nothing was stopping it. Finially it stopped and it was time to reel. Unfortunately the reel I was using was very difficult to handle. The reel kept getting stuck as I'm trying to spin the handle. Because of this, there was too much slack in the line and the fish came off. I was disappointed to say the least. Not a good feeling knowing you just lost a big fish. But thats fishing, sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't.

We headed back to the dock around 5:00pm with no fish in the cooler but I still had fun. The fishing was just slow that day, nothing you can do about that. It was my first time offshore and I got to see a few fish I don't normally see. Also I learned alot from the guide just being able to watch how he hooks the ballyho onto those mahi rigs. Hopefully someday I'll get to try it again!