The Brown Clowns are in Town
Capt. Tom Van Horn
March 15, 2011
Indian River Lagoon - Saltwater Fishing Report
The Brown Clowns are in Town
If you haven't heard, the brown clowns (cobia) are in town. Fishing conditions this past week have shown significant improvement, especially for March. Yesterday was a chamber of commerce day with blue bird skies, low winds and calm seas, and the cobia and manta rays have moved offshore of Port Canaveral schedule.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of fishing with my longtime client 82 year old Roland Van Arsdale and good friend Captain Rodney Smith. Over the years I've had many memorable fishing trips with both Roland and Rodney, and I was very enthusiastic about our opportunities. We loaded the boat and departed the Port around 10 am and headed south. When looking for cobia and rays in the spring, I like to head south, and then return in the afternoon when the sun in high and to my back, which affords the best visibility for sight fishing.
Well, yesterday we did just that, traveling south to just offshore of Melbourne, and began working our way back. Although we did see a lot of rays jumping out of the water, we didn't find any on the surface until about 3pm. We knew the rays and cobia were there, so we waited them out and were rewarded when several giant manta rays popped up with big cobia all over them. Within an hour we had triple hook-ups landing two big fish in the 40 pound range with Roland catching the largest one. Between the two cobia we kept, we couldn't zip up my fish bag, so we headed back to the port with enough fish to feed three families. We located the rays offshore of Patrick AFB in 70 feet of water, so if you like cobia fishing you might want to take a day off and join the circus while the getting is good and the clowns are in town.
Inshore on the flats, the redfish bite has been good on calmer days when the wind lets you find fish, and then very tough on those windy cloudy days. The water levels in the lagoon are up making navigation and access better. Most of the redfish have been schooled up, so you will need to cover a large area looking for fish.
On the freshwater scene, the American shad run is still producing some fish, so if you are still interested in catching a few shad, try fishing in the backwaters of the Econ and south of Puzzle Lake.
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