FL Fishing Report

Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report

Wind has been the dominant factor in our fishing for the past two weeks. Add in some clouds along with smoke from numerous fires and sight fishing has been nearly impossible on most days. The last two days, the winds have finally subsided but the clouds persist. On a positive note, the fish have been plentiful and bait is everywhere. As soon as the weather stabilizes, fishing should be as good as it gets.

Last week’s poor weather kept me off the water most days. We cancelled Monday’s trip due to wind. Wednesday, the forecast was for moderate winds but it blew 15-20 all day. The goal of my charter with Mike from North Carolina was to catch as many different types of fish as we could. Mike carves fish as a hobby and wanted photos of saltwater fish to use as a reference. We began the day looking for some small tarpon. Unfortunately, we did not find any. Our next stop produced a mangrove snapper and a toadfish. Spot three resulted in a flounder, a trout, and a nice redfish.

I had seminars Thursday and Saturday. Sunday, it was back to Mosquito Lagoon. From dawn until 8, I fished with Paul, the owner of Mosquito Creek Outdoors. I caught a redfish on a DOA Chughead/CAL combo and followed up with a trout on a Baitbuster. Paul had several bites on the Baitbuster as well but switched over to a greene back CAL and landed two nice trout.

We ran back to the ramp as the wind began to blow and I picked up Paul’s sister, Liz, and his son, Lee. We found several large schools of redfish on a shallow flat and Lee hooked up first.

A short while later, Liz had a redfish break off when another fish in the school hit the line. The next one made it to the boat for some photos and was her first ever redfish.

Thick clouds and the wind ruined our sight fishing so we decided to move out to some deeper water and blind cast for trout. After a couple moves, we found the hot spot and I spent the next hour unhooking one fish after the next. Liz used a DOA Deadly Combo and Lee threw various color 3 inch CAL tails. We caught too many to count but Lee had to take a break because his hand was tired from reeling in fish. Now that’s a good problem to have.Tuesday of this week, I had the pleasure of speaking to the Orlando Kayak Club. The following morning, I met Capt. Ron Presley in Cocoa Beach and we went in search of some early season tarpon. By mid morning, the winds were blowing over 20 and we did our best to hide in the canals. We found plenty of small tarpon as well as a few in the 20 pound range. We had a lot more strikes than we did hookups but I did land two tarpon using a holographic DOA shrimp. I switched over to the darker morning glory color and boated a snook as well.

Thursday was a fly fishing trip with Chad from Montana. It was a pleasant change to find slick calm water when we arrived. We never saw the sun all day but the water remained calm. We soon found ourselves surrounded by  dozens of schools of tailing and finning fish. It was a fly fisherman’s dream except for one thing. The fish would seem to let us get almost within Chad’s casting range and then they would take off. We would approach the next group and the same thing would happen. Each time, the fish were five feet farther than Chad could cast. This scenario went on for nearly five hours before we gave up on them. Chad is a long time fly fisherman but in his waters, there is rarely a need to cast over 30 feet. On this day, a 60-70 foot caster could have had double digit hookups. While travelling to our next stop, we came across a school of large reds tailing along the edge of a flat. As we got near, they dropped off into the deep water and vanished. I took Chad to the spot that produced the numerous trout last week and he used a clouser minnow and a 5wt rod to land ten small trout. It began to rain but we were determined to get a redfish on the fly. We tried one more spot and found some tailing singles. Chad finally hooked a redfish using a small black and chartreuse crab.

Compliments of Mosquito Creek Outdoors, Apopka, Florida
 
Well it looks like May has finally arrived on the Indian River Lagoon Coast.  Today was my first day on the Lagoon where the winds laid down, and yes we even had a rumble of thunder and some well-needed rain although brief, thank you Lord.
 
I started out my week fishing on Sunday, where I was privileged and honored to spend the day on the water with Paul and Diana Faircloth and their nephew Clay.  You see, it was Clay’s 11th birthday, and it was our mission to break in Clay’s new fishing rod.  Our day started out slow with a few small sea trout in the morning, but as the day grew longer the bite improved, and we ended the day with a good number of sea trout caught on Riptide Jigs and top-water Rapala Skitterwalks, and yes Clay was successful in breaking in his new birthday rod.
 
Several other trips were planned during the week, but they were either scrubbed or postponed for future dates due to windy conditions.

For the past two months, I have been diligently trying to fish in the No-Motor Zone with local angler Jim Rawnsley from the Oak Hill/Edgewater area, but windy conditions kept us off of the water until today.  Jim was the winner of the ISAA Raffle for the Captain Shawn Williams Family Charity charter I donated last spring, and I’m glad we waited.

The wind was light from the southwest as we polled out onto the flat, and we didn’t see any significant fish for the first few hours.  After covering a lot of ground and messing with small trout on top-water plugs, we located a nice school of redfish.  At first Jim made several nice top-water presentations, but the school lifted and began moving off.  At that point, we opted to leave them rest and catch us some bait and then return later.
 
As the day grew longer, the wind laid down even more, and on our return the redfish school was spread out across the flat happily tailing in every direction.   In addition to the redfish, there was also a good number of tailing black drum mixed in, which was an unexpected surprise.  For the next several hours we chunked cut bait, and Jim successfully land three over slot redfish with the larges being 43-inches.  The tails continued to pop-up everywhere, but a distant rumble of thunder sent us hightailing it back to the launch site as the rain set in.  Hopefully, this trip was a prelude to the summer and the wind has finally begun to subside, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
 
As always, if you need more information or have questions, please contact me.

Good luck and good fishing,

Captain Tom Van Horn
visit www.flyfishingfl.com guides page for contact info

Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Report Last week, I fished only one day, due to poor weather. Thursday, my wife joined me on the Mosquito Lagoon. Despite high winds much of the day, we spotted a decent number of redfish once the clouds passed through. Nine redfish and one drum was our final tally. Morning Glory and Watermelon Seed DOA CALs were the colors of the day.

This week, I was joined on Tuesday by Joe and his two sons. We saw a lot of redfish but most of the fish never saw the lures. After striking out with the reds, we tried trout fishing for a while but only landed four. The last hour was spent casting to some more redfish but the guys were blanked again.

Wednesday, honeymooners Rusty and Becky joined me for a day of some poor weather but great fishing. We began the morning trying to catch some early season tarpon. We saw a few but did not get a bite. The rest of the morning, we endured some extremely high winds but managed to land nine drum and two redfish. Becky shows off her first drum while Rusty is busy fighting one of his own.

Thursday, Wayne, a central Florida resident, treated British angler Shawn to his first trip to Mosquito Lagoon. Shawn landed the first two redfish of the day and then hooked up with a nice trout on a 4 inch DOA CAL in Arkansas Glow.

The guys hooked up with three more trout even larger but each one managed to throw the hook before we landed them. We saw hundreds of redfish throughout the day but they refused to eat unless the presentation was perfect. Wayne finally fooled this redfish that was following a large stingray.

Friday, I went searching for tarpon and snook. I found plenty of both. The tarpon were a bit smaller than I had hoped for but most of the snook I saw were much larger than I expected. The tarpon, which are notoriously finicky, were feeding well. Using a 3 inch DOA holographic shrimp, I jumped five and landed three. I had bites from more than a dozen others that did not get hooked. On the other hand, many of the snook showed little interest in eating. I caught two, missed a few other bites, and had one in the 15-20 pound range weave my line through a maze of tree branches before breaking off. All of the bites came on the holographic shrimp.

Contact Info - http://www.flyfishingfl.com/fly-fishing-guides.html

The winter fishing here in east central Florida continues to be excellent. Redfish, black drum, and seatrout are our primary species this time of year and all three have been readily available. The water levels over the past two weeks have been low resulting in some great sight fishing opportunities.

On Sunday, January 27, I fished the second annual fly fishing tournament sponsored by The Fly Fisherman in Titusville . This event had been cancelled the previous two weeks due to poor weather. This day turned out to be a poor day for fly fishing but the tournament went on as planned. When I arrived at the ramp with my partner, Capt. Keith Kalbfleisch, it was raining and the winds were blowing around 20. Unable to see any fish in the low light, we spent the first couple hours blind casting and picked up one redfish. By late morning, the sun came out but the wind continued blowing. We had steady shots at redfish and big trout throughout the day. Casting was difficult but the hardest part was trying to stop the boat before the wind blew us on top of the fish. Capt. Keith and I each caught two more redfish by sight casting a small rattling crab type pattern. Our five reds were good enough for a second place finish in this catch, photo, and release tournament with the winning team having caught six reds.

Tuesday, I joined captains Tom Van Horn and John Kumiski in the Banana River non motor zone. The weather had improved significantly and we came across a large school of big redfish tailing along the edge of a flat. I hooked a fish around 40 inches with a green crab fly using my 7wt.

Last week, coldest weather of the season came through the area causing the water temperature to drop twenty degrees in twenty-four hours. High winds and cold made for unpleasant fishing conditions so I stayed off the water. This week, however, was the complete opposite. For the most part, it was sunny, warm, and calm. I spent four days on the water with some excellent results.

Monday, Capt. John Kumiski and I spent the day fly fishing the Mosquito Lagoon. We began the day targeting tailing redfish in very shallow water. After spooking the first few fish, I caught one around four pounds on an olive #2 crab pattern. Capt. John quickly followed up with a redfish of similar size on a black redfish worm fly. As we were looking for the redfish, we came upon numerous large trout lying in shallow sand holes. I switched to an unweighted bendback style fly and managed to convince one of them to eat. With both trout and redfish having been landed, we went looking for some black drum. We found a school of them and Capt. John made several casts with a brown Merkin style crab. The lone redfish among the black drum was the first fish to grab the fly. The drum moved off and we were unable to find them but I was able to get my crab in front of a 27 inch redfish which grabbed it as I let it fall. John got a nice trout and I followed with one more redfish before some rain arrived and we headed in.

Tuesday, I was joined by brothers Rob and Gray from South Africa . Rob wanted to fly fish and his brother stuck with spinning tackle. We came upon numerous redfish and big trout throughout the morning. Rob was used to fishing in more remote locations with fish that are much less wary than our shallow water redfish. Although he made a valiant effort, most of his casts didn’t quite get to the fish quick enough. I elected to give them a shot at some black drum and we found a school of about 50 fish. Rob cast an olive Merkin crab to them and hooked up with a drum around 20 pounds.