Indian River Lagoon
5/20 - First day on the water without a Client in quite a long time, and I was accompanied by my friend Susan who is visiting from NYC. We headed out onto a glassy Indian River with foggy/partly cloudy skies. Susan hasn't been fishing in quite sometime so after a quick kayak/fishing lesson, we proceeded on our way to throw top waters around the many of bait schools roaming the area. First cast out with the super spook jr and a nice 24 1/2" trout comes in for photo!
Started worrying I'd get the first cast first catch curse, but that wasn't the case today. We paddled around a bit tossing the spook jr at bait schools, and weren't having much luck so we switched up to some swim baits, and not a few moments later a small school of slot reds cruises right across my bow. I quickly cast out, twitch twitch, bam fish on, and a nice 23" red comes in for picture time.
Released him back quickly reset my swim bait, and was still in casting distance of the school so I made another presentation with the same result and a 23.5" red smiled for the camera.
Release him and see another smaller school headed my direction so I reset the swim bait which is now looking mighty tore up but I figured no time. Toss it out and instantly it gets clobbered by a 20" trout.
So I'm so caught up in catching all these fish and I forgot about Susan who was trying her best but her casting abilities were far below par, and even after instruction she was still struggling, mainly cause she was playing girly girl and just didn't want to put any effort into it. So she's just paddling about enjoying the scenery.
But after seeing all the fish I was catching her attitude started to change and suddenly she really wants to catch one. I decided rather then spend all day trying to teach her to cast, we'd move to another area where we could soak some bait and hopefully pick up some over slot reds, these particular fish seem to be feeding much later in the morning. As we are heading over to the area I can see from a distance that there is definitely some activity, so I anchor us up giving her the best position possible for the reds following the grass ledge well with in her casting ability and tell her to wait till she sees some wakes pushing up and then make your cast out in front of them. Took a few tries but it all finally clicked for her and she was hooked up to her first ever Redfish and first ever fish in a yak, its over slot and she has no idea what to do hahaha!! She went on a short sleigh ride and with some coaching made quick work of this nice 30" red.
Susan was stoked but didn't want to catch another lol. She said it was to big and wanted to catch smaller ones. I laughed. Tossed out another piece of bait to kill some time so we could finish our delicious Bagel World breakfast. I ended up catching this nice 32" red on a piece of cut mullet, of course just as I took the first bite of my bagel. He put up a real nice fight, had me fooled a few times when I got him yakside then he'd hit the afterburners splash my face and peel off 20yds. It was entertaining but he eventually gave up and Susan captured this photo for me!
Susan was getting real tired and I could feel the wind was gonna kick up any minute and I wanted to finish the day off with glassy conditions so we started heading back to the launch. I had kept a small mullet head on one of the rods as my typical oh look a fish rod and as were cruising back in I spot this huge reds back out of the water as he's slowly cruising along in water much shallower then I'm sure he's comfortable being in. The winds starting to gust up and I know I don't have long so I maneuver around to get a better casting position, then manage to totally screw up my cast as it goes 10 ft the wrong way. Well I don't know if this red had radar and was tracking all inbound mullet heads, but he pulled a e-brake u turn b-lined straight for it, picked up and then proceeded to pull line off my Sustain 4000 for what seemed to be an hour. I chased him around in the yak (beauty of foot propelled kayaks) but he just kept running, and running, and running, and running, omg my wrist was killing me. It was at least 30 min fight which is way to long in my book. I never like doggin the big breeders, I like to get it over and get them released asap, but this guy had other plans. The winds building which is putting more strain on him as the winds blowing me away, and he eventually gave out. I was whooped, and he is HUGE!! Bring him to shallower water so I can get a measurement on him for KAYAK-WARS, and the ruler goes to 45" and pinched tail he clearly had another couple inches to go. I'm calling it 48" which is a few inches short of my personal best at just over 50".
So as the title says if tomorrow really is the rapture I really can't complain about my last fishing trip cause it was pretty freaking sweet!!!!!!! Tight lines!!
