Sleepy Hollow Flattie - Monday 4/29

My day off was today so I headed out to Sleepy Hollow after I dropped off my son at school. Parked and walked out to the bank around 10am. First spot was the rightside point, no hits. Second spot I moved to the leftside point, saw some mullet so I decided to hang around. Tried the white Gulp Mantis Shrimp with no luck. Switched to the white Gulp Swimming Mullet and caught a nice 15" flounder. Next cast I see something about 16-18" long attack my bait, could've been a small blue? I don't know because it spit the hook and left. Moved to the culvert area and caught a big crab. That was it for the morning. One flounder in the bucket is still a good day fishing to me!

Flat Bridge 4/23 Night Fishing - Zacks Big Shark!

Me and Zack hit the bridge with the usual bait...frozen ladyfish and plastic jigs. The ladyfish were thick, I could see them busting the bait on the water surface all near the bridge. Looked like they were after the river shrimp that were running. Once in awhile you could see a live shrimp skipping along the surface trying to get away from predators below.

At around 12:20 AM, Zack gets a solid hit on his chunk of ladyfish. His drag is singing and both of us have that "oh shit" feeling that something big is on the hook. Took about 10 minutes to get it close, the last 5 minutes I'm recording a video of Zack reeling away. I'm kinda coaching him along too, basically telling him to let the fish run if it wants to run. Zack dominated the reel and took his time only reeling when the fish stopped running. So it's been about 10 minutes and we first see a glob of seaweed hanging from his line, which confused me at first cause I see his weight hanging on the line too. I'm like, where's the fish? First glance of the fish eventually and I saw a nice dorsal fin, then I get a glance of it's nose and I see the tell tale shovel face...it's a large Bonnethead shark! This one we didn't try to lift, cause I remembered what happened last time I tried that (see previous post). Anyway, we directed it towards the shore where there's alot of rocks but I thought maybe we could steer it in then grab it. Well, my plan didn't work out so well. Zack was still on the bridge holding his rod with the shark on, and I'm down under the brige with the fishgrips. Zack tries to steer it around the rocky shore, and somehow the hook pops off. Bye bye sharky lol. Well I'm happy the shark as released quickly but I definitly wanted a few measurements and an upclose picture. No choice but to estimate the length at this point, which I had several good looks at it. So I'll estimate it at least 3' long from nose to tip of tail.


Awhile later Zack gets another hit on the cutbait but it's only a small hardhead catfish. I finially get a good lick on my cutbait rod, and the fight was pretty good too. But mine ended up being a medium sized sailfin catfish.

We continued to jig and were productive with the Gulp brand. Zack caught a small panfish sized crevalle jack, a nice 15" fork bluefish, and a couple ladyfish. I found the Gulp Mantis Shrimp in New Penny to be deadly on the ladyfish. I was getting hits on every cast, I probably caught a half dozen and jumped way more. A slow retrieve with an occasional twitch seemed to draw the bites in. Keeping them on the hook is the trick. They often unbutton from the hook very quickly. I took home about 7-8 ladyfish for freezing bait. I also took home the small jack and the bluefish for bait. What I do is cut off the tails and just freeze the fish whole in a gallon-sized freezer bag. I cut the tails off so they'd fit in the ziplock bags easier. It works really well!

Thursday Night 4/18 - P.O. Flat Bridge

Took my neighbor and his friend out fishing last night to the flat bridge. These guys have never been fishing with me, so I had to show them a few techniques I use to catch em on the bridge. As soon as we arrived and walked out to our spot, you could feel the strong winds gusting in our faces. The wind was just too strong to throw a jig so I put those rods to the side. The only option at this point was using cutbait, which I brought some frozen ladyfish. Diced up some chunks and stuck them on some 5/0 circle hooks on three seperate rods. We were getting steady bites, some were actually moving the rod pretty good. Nothing was getting hooked though. My neighbors friend notices a tap and starts reeling in, we notice that he's tangled with our lines somehow. As he's reeling he says there's a fish on the other end, the whole time he's still tangled with other lines. We get one line free so now it's just two rods tangled. He gets the fish up to the surface and it was a nice shark! Probably about 2.5ft long. So now comes the moment of truth, getting the shark up on the bridge. Well, we got it about 2 feet above water and it decides to shake. We tried to lower it back in the water to relieve some of the tension, but it was too late. The teeth had sliced the line at the hook and the shark was gone. It was still a nice shark, I just wish I had a picture of it to share. Oh well thats fishing. We fished for awhile longer but that was the only fish of the night.

27 LB / 40" Black Drum - Edgewater Easter Night!

An evening trip to New Smyrna/Edgewater on the night of Easter with my buddy Zack. We started at the North Causeway in NSB looking for live bait, and didn't see anything. Plus the pier was crowded with fishermen. So we left there and decided to try Edgewater before we went home. At Edgewater, we first attempted to jig artificials. I used a tandem rig that had two 3" gulp swimming mullets and my first cast I immediately caught a small bluefish. After releasing him back in the water, I tried the tandem rig again but no more fish. I switched to a DOA nite glow shrimp and no hits. By then my frozen filet of crevalle jack meat was thawed. So I chunked it, hooked it, and tossed it out in the water. After a short soak, I got a good hit and felt a powerful fish on the end of the line. As the fish is making runs and pulling line off my reel, I'm looking at Zack like "is this for real?". LOL
A good 5-10 minute fight and I get it up closer to the dock. It was a bigass black drum, my personal best for sure. There's no way I'm lifting it over the rails so I gently manuever it to the boat ramp where we can just slide it up. By then, the fish was extremely tired. Here are my trophy photos :)

My First Snook! NSB South Causeway

Another night trip to the intercoastal waterway, this time we stopped at the South Causeway in NSB. For the most part we were jigging artificials. I tried the shallow area near the parking lot, and felt a bite but it let go. Kept trying the Gulp new penny shrimp and finially hooked the fish. It turned out to be a small snook, which in fact, is my very first snook ever caught! It was only about 12" long so a quick release was important. Here are photos of the baby snook with a mouthful of gulp shrimp LOL

CNS Surf Report 1/14

Hit the beach again today, found a crowded Lot#4 with alot of fishermen. Today I only fished my 10' pole with live sand fleas. The surf was 1-2 ft with a drifting north current. Waves were breaking pretty far out so it was hard to find the deep pockets. High tide was at 10am so when I arrived at 11am, it had already starting going out. In the first hour I caught a barely legal 11" pompano and then 2 whiting. After that, the bite stopped so I left around 1pm. At least everything caught today was keeper size.

11" pompano
2 whiting

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.

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.