Indian River Lagoon Coast Fishing Report, December 24, 2014
Capt. Tom Van Horn
December 25, 2014
Indian River Lagoon - Saltwater Fishing Report
This Weeks Fishing Report
First, let me begin this week's fishing report by wishing every one of you a very merry Christmas season. We are truly blessed to live in the sunshine state where fishing is a year round endeavor, and I am truly blessed to be surrounded by a loving and caring family, great friends, and to have a job that requires me to go fishing. God bless each and every one of you this Christmas and I'm looking forward to fishing with you in 2015.
Well folks, the number one question I'm hearing this week is? Where are the shad? Thus far, there are no reports of shad that I've heard of, and I can only speculate about absents.
The above graft is the water level reading from the USGS water level gauge located on the St Johns River and Hwy 50 in Christmas and although the water levels are dropping slowly, our normal water levels during the American shad run are much lower than our current level.
In addition to the elevated water levels, the water temperature needs to be below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. So my thoughts are if the water levels continue to drop and water temperature cools, the shad run should commence. The final factor to the equation, is the water levels need s to drop to the point where the river is within its banks for several reasons: One, lower water levels will concentrate fish within the banks. Two, our typical water level drop we see during the winter pulls all of the bait off of the pastures into the river and the current accelerates, which is what the shad like for spawning.
On the plus side, the crappie bite on Lakes Harney, Jessup and Monroe have been very good, and the catfish bite on the St. Johns River has been off the hook as well. Last week I had the pleasure of filming on my forth episode of the Ultimate Catch TTV Show with Captain Eric Ciocher which is featured on the world Fishing network. We had scheduled two days to film the show, but the bite was so good, we finished filming in one day. Our goal was to film a crappie fishing show, but as it turned out it will be a crappie/light tackle catfish show.
On the lagoons, cold water has concentrated the large sea trout up into the shallow and muddy locations, but they have been very challenging to catch. Last week I polled a client into the Banana River No-Motor zone where we found hundreds of very large sea trout concentrated into a very large depression on the flats, but the fish we so spooky all we did was constantly plow them out. When it was all said and done, we saw hundreds of fish and caught none. It was a beautiful day on the water, just no fish.
As always, if you have any questions or need more information, please contact me.
Good luck and good fishing,
Captain Tom Van Horn
Mosquito Coast Fishing Charters
www.irl-fishing.com
407-416-1187 on the water
[email protected]
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