Night fishing round two, and morning flats.

Chuck D · May 2013

With the success of Friday's night fishing trip, I figured a saturday trip was in order. Same spot. I launched a little later this time, around 9, and started fishing. We brought nets this time to scoop up all the blue crabs we had seen, which proved to be a good idea. I hooked up about a half hour into fishing, and he immediately headed into the structure. I hooked him about 5 feet from the bridge, so stopping it was impossible. I at least didn't break off, but the fish got off. Tried there for another hour or so, then headed out to the lagoon to the deep hole. After arriving there we deployed baits, shrimp for me, and crab for the people I was with. I hooked up on a catfish pretty soon... and he stayed a catfish. waited another half hour or so, dropping bait in different spots looking for fish, switched one rod to crab, when I hear screaming drag. My buddy is hooked up, fights it for a half minute, and it comes loose. Bummer. Then my crab goes off. My penn battle is SCREAMING. It's loaded with 30 lb braid and in about 30 seconds the spool is starting to look empty. I need to get my anchor up or I'm gonna lose this fish. In the chaos maybe my anchor line wrapped around the spool or something or maybe my reel froze up but the drag stopped going, the weight got VERY heavy, and the line snapped right at the reel. Looking back at what I DID catch, that fish was BIG. maybe 50 inches or more. I couldn't even slow it down. My friends needed to leave, and I told them I'd meet them at the ramp and leave in 5 minutes. I even took my phone out, checked the time and told myself I'd leave in 5 minutes. I got a another crab out of the net, crushed his shell a bit (they wouldn't hit the live ones), and fired him out there. Well 4 minutes later... I feel a thud, and the line starts to come tight. Fish on. 20 minutes later after a few close calls losing him to rocks, shoreline, and a lot of line lost and gained back, he came up next to the boat. Our ruler was 36 inches, and he was a good 5 or 6 inches over that. The one friday was a possible personal best, this definitely is.

got back around 2am, went to bed at 2:30, and woke up at 530 to fish again. We hit our favorite flat with nice glassy conditions, and started hitting the area with topwaters and mirrodines, caught quite a few trout, and tried out my new ultralight rod. A star Seagis 4-10 and a 1000 saros with 8 lb braid. Trout are a lot tougher to fight with that thing. Super fun. Saw some red action in the area, but couldn't get them the commit. Fired a live shrimp into a likely looking area (on my full size rod), intent on drifting it behind me as the light wind moved me along slowly, but felt a thump within a few seconds. Once I heard the drag, redfish on. Smaller fish, low 20's. We carried on with the lures and I drifted around with the shrimp, and picked up a couple more trout. I had picked up some pinfish from the bait shop (they were out of finger mullet), and tried freelining those out. No takers. We had some crabs left so we posted up in a spot and both tossed out a crab. After a little while my buddy had a fish on. Nice fish, low 30's. right after he released his my crab got picked up. Similar fish. I got another crab from him, fired it on a long cast, and the crab broke! I reeled in just a piece of shell. I figured they wanted dead bait, like the night before, so I hooked a pinfish through the gills (so he was bleeding) and tossed that out. fish on soon after. Repeat. Fish on. All upper slot or slightly over. I figured two line was better than one, and the artificial bite was kinda done, so I threw out a pinfish on the ultra light. Maybe 30 seconds after it hit the water the line jumped and the drag started going. That little saros 1000 is LOUD. I picked up and reeled down on the fish and saw my other rod getting hit in the rod holder. I choose to fight the fish I have on and worry about that one later. I look over and my friend is hooked up too! Triple header! It's a circle hook so it set itself. after 10 minutes or so I get the fish to the boat, put the rod in the holder and start on the other fish. I landed this one quicker on the bigger set up, and had both reds boatside. one was maybe 26 and was was about 30. The bigger one was on the ultralight, and I am super happy about the way it handled the red. I wouldn't use it around structure though... Ended the morning at noon with 8 reds and a few trout, my buddy got 3 reds and a few trout as well. Plus the two slobs from the night trips. A great weekend of fishing!

SpaceCoast Slayer · May 2013

my god man!! some excellent fish.. that one on the right in the second pic is way over 30.. very nice night fish too my friend.. im gonna have to try that this week.. ive never fished haulover, not sure where to start or even launch, but im gonna google earth it and check it out.. are the generally around structure? i saw you talkin about the bridge.. youre really producing some honkers dude way to go! pretty **** flat you got there :grin

Chuck D · May 2013

cbmdk86 wrote: »

my god man!! some excellent fish.. that one on the right in the second pic is way over 30.. very nice night fish too my friend.. im gonna have to try that this week.. ive never fished haulover, not sure where to start or even launch, but im gonna google earth it and check it out.. are the generally around structure? i saw you talkin about the bridge.. youre really producing some honkers dude way to go! pretty **** flat you got there :grin

I don't want to over exaggerate because I didn't measure it, but you may be right. I could barely hold it out for the picture. As far as haulover the whole area can produce, but generally around structure there will be fish. I fish it a little different than most people, as I was showed by a friend to. If you want to hit it up some time I'm down. I come up to Titusville once or twice a month.