Fishing a cold front in July!!! Mosquito Lagoon
Posted: July 23rd, 2007, 9:51 am
Good moring Yall. Well I know this is out of the Bigbend area, but I figure if your like me you like to findout whats going on in other areas, so here it is. My buddy, Ryan Harris, and I woke up saturday morning at 4:20am to get the first light bite. We lauched at the Canveral seashore ramp with lots of coffee and high hopes for the day.
First off we wanted to run south the a place called George's Bar. It's a long oyster bar that signals the start of the large area of open water for the lagoon. We wanted to check and see if the tarpon had showed up yet. Nope so we head off behind some spoil islands on the west side of the lagoon. Top water for the first couple of hours with only 1 22" red to show for it.
We were able to see several crusing but just singles, no big schools. And they didn't seem to want to chew. But I just knew this would be the day since the unheard of cold front was about 12 hours off from punching through. So we tryed a few different flats with some artificals and saw many more reds but couldn't get them to bite. It's about 10:30, usually time to get off the water because of the heat, but today was over cast with just enough breeze to keep you cool.
We head back to Georges Bar to try something else. At the bar there were ton's and tons of schools of mullet. So we drift down the bar, Ryan with a jig and me with Old Lucky, red and silver plug. Nothing biting but you can tell there is something there because the bait keeps spooking and jumping out of the water every so often.
We get to a particular spot on the bar where for some reson or another the reds seems to hang out more that the rest of the bar. Just as I was saying how I was makeing so much noise I must be the reason nothign was biting. Litterally while saying that Fish on!! To the boat comes a fat 24" trout. We drift a few more yards and then see a small school of reds hold up just down the bar. We toss at them but they spook.
Ok we are here and haven't caught many fish. No need to reinvent the wheel so my buddy rigs up a setup for chunk mullet. He toss to the edge of the bar, while I pull in a short trout on Old Lucky. Now usually this chunk mullet thing is a waiting game, not this time. Ryan hooks up and the drag is letting loose. We get the red to the boat measure him at 23" and decide I may want to eat, so in the fish bag he goes. Ryan throws out again and while I'm retieing he hooks up again with a 24" red. Back in the drink he goes so we can keep a big one, if we catch one.
Once we are holding poles waiting for the big one it becomes none stop action. Ryan's pole zings again. Its a good fight with a very large red. He reads 27 1/2 " so back in the drink he goes. I reajust my Jaw, and that seemed to do the trick because within 5 mintues of the last red my reel start burning off line. After a five minute fight I boat a red that goes 29", and is fat as I've ever seen one. It went over 10 lbs on the boca!!! We boat a few more big red's with them all being over, just over!! Then a boat runs within 100 yards of us, seemed far enought but we see an explosion in the water cause by many many fish getting spooked.
We fish for a half an hour or so more but don't see any action and get a bit. We called it a day and headed off the JB's Fsh camp for some grub. We tried the same thing the next day after the front moved through but as typically happens in the spring and fall, we had blue bird skies with nothing but catfishs chewing. It was nice to be able to be out there about all day and barely even break a sweat. Well there it is.
I still miss mashy sands!
Total for Saturday 9 Redss 22-29 inches, one 24" trout and 5 shorts, Sundays total 2 hard heads and a beautiful day on the water.
First off we wanted to run south the a place called George's Bar. It's a long oyster bar that signals the start of the large area of open water for the lagoon. We wanted to check and see if the tarpon had showed up yet. Nope so we head off behind some spoil islands on the west side of the lagoon. Top water for the first couple of hours with only 1 22" red to show for it.
We were able to see several crusing but just singles, no big schools. And they didn't seem to want to chew. But I just knew this would be the day since the unheard of cold front was about 12 hours off from punching through. So we tryed a few different flats with some artificals and saw many more reds but couldn't get them to bite. It's about 10:30, usually time to get off the water because of the heat, but today was over cast with just enough breeze to keep you cool.
We head back to Georges Bar to try something else. At the bar there were ton's and tons of schools of mullet. So we drift down the bar, Ryan with a jig and me with Old Lucky, red and silver plug. Nothing biting but you can tell there is something there because the bait keeps spooking and jumping out of the water every so often.
We get to a particular spot on the bar where for some reson or another the reds seems to hang out more that the rest of the bar. Just as I was saying how I was makeing so much noise I must be the reason nothign was biting. Litterally while saying that Fish on!! To the boat comes a fat 24" trout. We drift a few more yards and then see a small school of reds hold up just down the bar. We toss at them but they spook.
Ok we are here and haven't caught many fish. No need to reinvent the wheel so my buddy rigs up a setup for chunk mullet. He toss to the edge of the bar, while I pull in a short trout on Old Lucky. Now usually this chunk mullet thing is a waiting game, not this time. Ryan hooks up and the drag is letting loose. We get the red to the boat measure him at 23" and decide I may want to eat, so in the fish bag he goes. Ryan throws out again and while I'm retieing he hooks up again with a 24" red. Back in the drink he goes so we can keep a big one, if we catch one.
Once we are holding poles waiting for the big one it becomes none stop action. Ryan's pole zings again. Its a good fight with a very large red. He reads 27 1/2 " so back in the drink he goes. I reajust my Jaw, and that seemed to do the trick because within 5 mintues of the last red my reel start burning off line. After a five minute fight I boat a red that goes 29", and is fat as I've ever seen one. It went over 10 lbs on the boca!!! We boat a few more big red's with them all being over, just over!! Then a boat runs within 100 yards of us, seemed far enought but we see an explosion in the water cause by many many fish getting spooked.
We fish for a half an hour or so more but don't see any action and get a bit. We called it a day and headed off the JB's Fsh camp for some grub. We tried the same thing the next day after the front moved through but as typically happens in the spring and fall, we had blue bird skies with nothing but catfishs chewing. It was nice to be able to be out there about all day and barely even break a sweat. Well there it is.
I still miss mashy sands!
Total for Saturday 9 Redss 22-29 inches, one 24" trout and 5 shorts, Sundays total 2 hard heads and a beautiful day on the water.
