Indian River Lagoon
Capt. Tom Van Horn
June 13, 2004
Indian River Lagoon - Saltwater Fishing Report
Indian River Lagoon Coast fishing Report
Indian River Lagoon Coast Fishing Report, June 12, 2004
Mosquito Coast Fishing Charters
Angling on the Indian River Lagoon Coast this past week resulted in some quality catches from the deck of Three Quarter Time, but the bite has not been significant. The bait concentrations are heavy, and the fish have been fairly easy to locate, but finding them in a happy mood is another story.
My week started out last Saturday in the north Indian River Lagoon, with Randy Dye and his longtime fishing buddy John from Kissimmee, Florida. Both Randy and John are accomplished bass anglers, but neither had experienced the excitement of a jumbo redfish on light tackle. Their eagerness and enthusiasm impressed me when I arrived at the dock a half-hour early (5am), to find them both ready and willing to hit the water. Within minutes of our arrival at the first spot, both Randy and John scored a double hook-up on fat ladyfish using top-water plugs, and they continued to catch trout after trout until the sun cleared the horizon. As the morning progressed, Randy scored the first respectable redfish of 24 pounds on a fat chunk of ladyfish, and John followed shortly with one of 19 pounds. During the battle with John’s fish, the school spooked off of the flat into deeper water, and we spent the rest of the charter looking instead of catching.
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of fishing with Darla and David Attaway from Winter Springs, Florida. We started our day in the same area of the Lagoon, and again we manager three nice reds ranging from 17 to 24 pounds, before losing the school. On both days, the same sequence of events played out; as we would search hard to locate the school, catches a fish, and lose the school again.
On Thursday, my fishing adventure lead me to the near-shore waters of Port Canaveral where I met up with Ron Ehrke for a day of chasing tarpon and kingfish along the beach. My plan was to arrive early, and have a well full of pogies before meeting Ron at the dock, soon, I found myself motoring south out of the Port before the pelicans left their perches. As I cruised just outside the breakers, I easily located a heavy concentration of bait just north of the Cocoa Beach Pier, and I floated my Calusa cast net on the first throw. While I loaded the bait well with hand picked pogies, a tarpon smashed at the excess bait I had culled from my net, and I had the feeling a great day of catching was ahead of us, boy was I wrong. Quickly I returned to the dock and picked up Ron, and after a long hard day of dragging baits, we only managed to get three small black-tip sharks to eat. There were tarpon rolling everywhere, but they had lockjaw. The unsettling thing about our bad luck was my charter on Friday also had tarpon on his mind.
On Friday, I met up with Mike Dills from West Hartford, and we pushed away from the dock around 6am. Our hopes were to find the same tarpon on an early morning bite. As we turned south out of the Port, a stiff southeast wind and choppy seas dampened my hopes, and the bait and tarpon from the day before were gone. The only thing I could think of was to keep heading south down the beach, and believe it or not, my bad feelings turned out to be good as we soon located bait, and the winds lay down. For the rest of the day, the bite was slow but steady, and Mike ended up catching two nice kingfish around 20 pounds, a 30 plus pound Jack, several black-tip sharks, and he pulled hook on a 40 to 50 pound tarpon after a 20 minute battle.
All in all, it was a decent week of catching and for those who are interested, the kingfish, cobia, and tarpon were inshore in forty feet of water just off of the beach.
As always, if you have questions or need information, please contact me.
Good luck and good fishing,
Captain Tom Van Horn
www.irl-fishing.com
[email protected]
407-366-8085 office
407-416-1187 on the water
866-790-8081 toll free
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