Hope everybody had a great and safe New Year! Since the start of 2011, I’ve been fishing the Mosquito Lagoon, Indian River, and Banana River lately to see what was going on. All three Lagoon systems have been holding a ton of Black Drum, Redfish, and Spotted SeaTrout. I’ve encountered large schools of tailing Redfish and Black Drum but we have had a hard time getting them to eat a fly or artificial due to cold, crystal clear shallow water and slick calm conditions. The SeaTrout bite has been hot in the 3 Lagoons. Deeper holes and channel edges will be the best bet with soft plastics on a 1/4oz jig head. You can also find them in the shallows but like the Redfish and Black Drum, they will know that you are trying to catch them. Now that the temperatures has been warmer, I’m sure the fishing will get better from now on if the weather cooperates. I will be out there this weekend to see if these same fish has worked up a big appetite!
My last couple outings have been pretty tough due to 3 days in a row of upper 20’s and lower 30’s each night. Every morning I woke up to a thick layer of frost on the deck of my skiff! Plenty of fish are to be spotted on deeper edges of flats and some on the shallows when the sun is at the highest point. I fished the Mosquito Lagoon and Banana River the last few days and everyday I saw plenty of tailers, schools, and singles but they will hardly touch any offerings. The cold water has made these fish very picky and lethargic. For best results, try to scale down your baits and slow down the presentation, if you are lucky, the fish will eat, heavily scented baits may boost your luck a bit. I’ve had best luck fly fishing using small crab or shrimp patterns. Many others have been having great luck in deeper cuts and channels bouncing jigs or live shrimp on the bottom. On the bright side, the temps have now warmed up a bit and looks to stay that way for a while which will put the great winter time sight fishing back to normal. Hopefully this last cold snap will be the final one for this winter, 2011 is just around the corner and I wish you all good fishing for 2011….HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
With a busy week lined up with charters next week, I’ve been exploring some waters to see if I can find some consistent fish. Today I decided to check out the Banana River on a solo mission. I was greeted by slick calm conditions as soon as I got to the ramp but once I got to spot A, the south winds started blowing. Lots of big Sea Trout are sitting in sand holes along grassflats in the 1-3′ depths with Redfish in the mix. Redfish were sunning and laid up in sand holes in less than a foot of water around 1-2pm. Most fish were spooked when I jigged a few different types of artificial baits in front of there faces. I then put the spinning rod away and broke out my flyrod. Once I saw some fish laid up in sand holes from a distance that I could accurately cast, I put down my Wang Anchor so I wouldn’t drift over or get too close to the fish. Once I made my cast to a laid up fish and started my retrieve, I watched as the nice 27-30 inch fish slurped my Redfish Slider as I was pulling it across its head!! One of the best eats I’ve seen in a while!
Sight fishing with the fly rod has been great this winter, give me a call and hop aboard my Maverick HPX-T, lets get you out here and test your sight fishing skills!!
Redfishing in the winter time is great! Nothing but crystal clear water and schools of Redfish in 1-2 ft of water…best of all, you don’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn. The fish that I’ve been finding the last couple days in the Indian and Banana Rivers have been traveling in tight schools of 15-20+ fish. They will usually get aggressive once the temperatures warm up….look for fish sunning in shallow sand holes surrounded by dark thick grass or cruising the banks looking for food. A dark colored DOA Cal on a 1/4 jighead will do the trick. Big Gator Trout will also be in the same areas but catching them is a different story.
Finally back on the Mosquito Lagoon after returning from Louisiana, boy have things changed. I decided to hit the Northern part of the Lagoon where on recent trips have been fantastic for sight fishing. From the recent cold temperatures that we’ve been having, all of the fish that I’ve been on have moved somewhere else, so today was more of an exploring day than fishing the spots that usually hold fish for me. After some running around from spot to spot we finally located some fish but these fish were pretty spooky in the gin clear water, the hard part was to get them to eat an artificial lure without them seeing us first. After some refusals on lighter color baits, we switched to pumpkin seed and golden bream D.O.A. Cals which triggered the fish to eat. The redfish seemed to be more aggressive later in the afternoon and that’s when Marshall Brewer landed these nice redfish from a school of 40-50 fish. If there were 2 anglers on the bow, we could have easily gotten multiple double hook-ups today on Redfish. Marshall also caught a nice Flounder that popped off at the boat and had shots at huge trout in the 30+ inch range but they did not want anything to do with our offerings.
If you would like to book a trip in the gin clear waters of Mosquito Lagoon and sight cast to Redfish and big Trout, give me a call at (321) 303-7805 or email me at nativeflycharters@gmail.com. Thanks for visiting nativeflycharters.com!!
-Capt. Willy Le
Saturday Dec. 4th was the Maverick/Back Country Fly fishing Cup in Vero Beach, FL. The crew at Maverick Boats and The Back Country Fly/Spin shop did a great job putting on this friendly event. I partnered up with long time friend Dominic Agostini, being our 1st time fishing the area(and our 1st time ever fishing a Fly Tournament), Dominic ended up catching the biggest Redfish of the day winning our team a $125 gift certificate to The Back Country. I want to thank everyone who participated and donated prizes for the raffles, it was a fun time meeting great people and can’t wait for the next one in the Spring!
Awards ceremony video courtesy of Scott Deal of Maverick Boats.
After the tournament in Vero, Capt. Honson Lau from Miami followed me to my house in Cocoa Beach with his 18′ Maverick HPX in tow so we could fish the Mosquito Lagoon the next day. As we were making the drive from Cocoa Beach to Mosquito Lagoon the next morning, we actually drove through some gusty winds and rain clouds which kind of bummed us out. A cold front was moving through but we could see some clearing skies behind the front so we proceeded heading north to the Goon. We didn’t have much time to fish but it turned out to be a great day! We had little windows of sunlight in between clouds but those little windows was enough time to spot fish and make the cast and presentations for hungry redfish to devour our flies! We ended up catching 6 redfish on fly and 2 on spin tackle. I’m sure if we had more time and sunlight, we could have easily caught 20-30+ fish. The 18′ Maverick HPX performed really well in the skinny waters of Mosquito Lagoon, it is the perfect all around boat for open water and skinny, and is THE boat to have if you are in the guiding business…don’t be surprised if you see me owning one of these skiffs in the future!
Yesterday Eddie Oliveras invited me to head over to Tampa and fish the Bay with him while he drops off a pushpole at Carbon Marine for Joe to repair. What a good time to start scouting for spots for the Salty Fly tournament in February that Eddie and I have entered. Joe Welbourn runs the company and was nice enough to point us in the right direction considering that neither of us has fished the Tampa Bay area before in our lives. After some quick tips from Joe, we headed to the ramp while he gets to work on Eddies Push Pole. After launching the boat and a short run to spot A, we immediately see tons of big trout on a flat. Eddie Caught 3 nice trout on spin while I was trying to get one to eat a fly but they were not having it. The next spot we hit had a few reds on the shoreline, I end up getting one out of a pair to chase down my fly and crush it right before our eyes. By this time we have lost our sunlight so we decide to check out another spot really quick and blind cast D.O.A. Cals which resulted in me catching 2 more redfish to end the day!!
Mosquito Lagoon sight fishing has been really good lately! I have plenty of dates available. Also, if you like the winter beanie hats that you see in the pictures, contact me if you would like to purchase them. They are all hand made by FAXION Clothing Company(a local clothing company owned and operated by me, myself, and I). Prices range from $10-$20 depending on pattern and material.
Eddie and I went down to Vero Beach to explore the area and pre-fish for the Maverick/Back Country Fly Fishing Cup. I have never fished the area ever in my life and only went by charts and hours of virtually exploring on Google Maps nights before. Vero is one hour south of my house in Cocoa Beach, we arrived there around 2:30pm which left us only 2 to 2 1/2 hours to explore and fish. Yes, we had a very late start but went with it anyways. Once we dropped my skiff in, I have already had a game plan and I knew exactly where I wanted to start and finish. I decided to run north and fish in wind protected coves, around docks, and around some spoil islands. We didn’t have much time so we opted to fish with spinning gear to cover more ground and search for fish. Water was very muddy and the winds were blowing at 15-20mph out of the north so we did mostly blind casting with Chartreuse D.O.A Jig Heads and white/chartreuse tail D.O.A. Cals. I ended up catching a few small trout, while Eddie managed to find a slam(redfish, trout, snook, caught in one outing). All fish were on the small side but it’s still a good sign that there are fish around.
After loading the skiff back on the trailer, we took a short drive over to The Back Country fly shop so I could register for the Tournament. The Back Country is a very nice fly/spin shop. I was impressed when I walked in the door, they had a lot of goodies there and equipment that you cannot get at most stores or tackle shops. I met Capt. Eric Davis who helped me at the register, not only did he ring me up, but he gave me a lot of info and a few tips on fishing the Vero area. My game plan was now turned around 180 for the tournament day based on the info that he gave me, so if I end up winning, I owe you Eric 🙂 (who is also fishing the tournament with Capt. Honson Lau by the way).
I also want to give a big Thanks to Vince at Skinny Water Culture for providing Eddie and I with some new SWC gear including the new Ambush Trucker hat! All I have worn are trucker hats for years due to a ginormous cranium and a different taste in style. Skinny Water Culture went out of their way to make sure I get the trucker hats that fit my needs, and are now available to order on the online store! They also have great tee shirt designs, micro fiber fishing shirts, and face masks. Check out their store at www.skinnywaterculture.com.
Went on a quick trip out of Port Canaveral with my brother, his dog Romeo and our friend David. Winds were expected to pick up about 20mph in the afternoon so we decided to stay close around the buoy line and target the tasty Trpiletail (aka Buoy Bass) because we knew it was going to get a little rough for the 22ft Pathfinder Tournament Edition. With the short amount of time that we had to fish, we hooked 5 Tripletail, landed 3 and 2 were keeper size. We saw plenty of fish on buoys and floating debris that we found.
At one point we had a Cobia pop up on us. My brother grabbed a Cobia jig and casted at it, the fish chased the jig down but did not take it then disappeared. About 10 minutes later, it resurfaced for a second and disappeared again. My brother then tips the Cobia jig with a whole squid that was intended for bottom fishing that day and sent the jig down to the bottom in about 45ft of water. Starting to jig it back up, he gets the “thump” and amazingly the Cobia had found the scent of the squid tipped jig and the battle was on! After we landed the Cobia, the wind picked up as expected and we called it a day. The Cobia weighed in at 48lbs on the scale.
If you would like to catch some Tripletail, now is a good time to give me a call while the fish are still out there. You may also get that bonus Cobia along with plenty of Bluefish and Spanish Mackeral.
Today I got a call from Eddie Oliveras insisting that I get off the couch(recovering from a hurt ankle) and join him on a half day on the water. At first I was iffy, but I just received 2 brand new Nautilus Reels in the mail the day before, a NV 11/12 and the new FWX 7/8, so of course I wanted to get slime on the FWX. I paired my FWX 7/8 with Temple Fork Outfitters new BVK series in a 8wt. The line I chose for this set up is the new Saltwater Sight Line by Jim Teeny Flylines. This line compares to the Flip Pallot taper by Jim Teeny which is my favorite line but unfortunately will be discontinued, and replaced with the bright orange Saltwater Sight Line. With all of these fine components together as one, it makes for a super lightweight combo that shoots like a cannon!
Eddie and I fished the 1,000 Islands area today in Cocoa Beach. The redfish did a spectacular job hiding from us today, and left us with only a few shots each. My second shot of the day was on a redfish swimming away from us, usually that is the worst fish to cast to because it’s kinda odd for the fish to see what they are about to attack swim straight towards them and into their mouth. There’s a slim chance that the fish will just take it, but most of the time it just sends the fish fleeing away….today was the slim chance for me! A few more shots were had by Eddie and I with no takers so we decided to call it a day and get some food.
Once in a while some select people will have a craving for Old Bay, I am one of those people as well as Eddie, so we decided to hit a crab joint on the east side of the causeway of the Indian River in west Merritt Island called Ms. Apples Crab Shack. I go to Ms. Apples and buy live blue crabs when I am too lazy to catch them, but I usually bring them home and steam them myself. Today we decided to eat there. They have picnic tables lined outside of the building and some lining the edge of the Indian River. The place is really cool, first you go in, grab a bucket and some tongs, grab as many crabs as you want, then hand them the bucket for them to season up and steam…18 minutes later, you have fresh steamed crabs and they are by far THE best steamed blue crabs that I’ve had in Florida. They provide brown paper for you to line your table with, so you just dump your crabs on there and start crackin’! Make sure you bring your own beverages if you prefer, all that they have there is a soda machine.
Went out for a late exploring expedition with friend Eddie. We got on the water by 11:30am when the sun got a little higher and the air temps got a little warmer. Our goal was to find some redfish in the skinny waters of my backyard, the 1,000 islands of Cocoa Beach in the Banana River. Our spin gear was rigged with D.O.A. shrimps with the tails clipped off and rigged backwards on a weedless worm hook, I also inserted rattles in the head of the shrimp. For the flyrods we had dark redfish sliders and a spoon fly. While poling a shoreline that I rarely fish, we immediately see a redfish cruising along the bank, Eddie flips his glow/coppercrush belly artificial shrimp over to it and the fish crushes it like there’s no tomorrow! After landing the fish and a quick photo and release we keep poling further back into the backcountry of the 1,000 islands and into new areas that I’ve never been. We saw a good amount of redfish and found some cool backwaters that hold fish but they were not interested in Eddies the spoon fly. I end up getting one to eat a slider and Eddie pops another on the D.O.A. shrimp. The fish are now starting to tail more feeding on shrimp and crabs that are in the thick grass, time to start tying up some crab and shrimp patterns and get ready for the Wintertime tailing redfish!! Trout are abundant in the deeper channels as well, D.O.A. shrimps or CALS on a jighead will do the trick casting along the edges of channels.
Hope to get on the water with you and enjoy our great year round Redfish fishery that Florida has to offer!
