Mosquito Lagoon Fish Bite in Spite of Cold; St. Johns Crappie HO
Capt. John Kumiski
February 10, 2010
Titusville - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing Report from Spotted Tail 2/6/10
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In last week's report I wrote that I had pulled two ticks out of my hide. Reader Gary Griffin kindly, and quickly, responded: "Keep an eye on the ticks for bites. Just in case you don't already know, if you notice a ‘bulls-eye' rash (concentric circles) around a bite site get checked for Lyme Disease. It's easily cured with massive doses of antibiotic if you discover it early."
I had a large, ugly, bull's eye rash near my left armpit, so went to the doctor. He looked at it and didn't even take any blood. He just prescribed a tetracycline-type antibiotic, which I am now taking. Keep that Lyme disease offa me and outa me!
I had received an email that the shad had shown up in the St. Johns. Tuesday afternoon I drove to the SR 46 bridge, pulled on my waders, and went fishing. I walked the banks all the way to the mouth of the Econ. There were lots of very stinky dead fish, tilapia and Plecostamus. I looked for flapping shad and saw none. I fished a chartreuse and a white shad fly and got one crappie and two large bluegills. For two hours plus of walking and casting that was pretty slow. Did not see or get a bite from a shad.
Wednesday morning I met Brian Graves at Parrish Park. It was about 45 degrees, overcast, and blowing good out of the north. Yes, there were whitecaps. We launched at Haulover Canal and went looking for fish. I have to commend Brian for even trying under those circumstances.
The funny thing is we got a nice trout and two reds at the first spot we tried. One fish came on a RipTide weedless jig and the other two on a chartreuse DOA Shrimp. We floated through the spot a second time and got nothing, so we went hunting.
Some spots had some fish. Some spots had none. We saw some brutes in the 20 pound class. The sun finally came out at about 2 PM. But we didn't get another bite until about 15 minutes before our day was finished. I talked to three other fishermen at the boat ramp. None of them had seen a fish or gotten a bite. Speaking relatively, we did pretty well! Could we have done better by bait fishing? Possibly. Brian isn't fond of bait, so we didn't try using any.
Thursday morning found me in Sanford. I was a media angler at the Crappie Masters tournament being held there (www.crappiemasters.net). I fished with Gilford and Coy Sipes, cousins from Alabama. The cousins Sipes were super nice guys, and they know their crappie (see photos). They didn't bring me to the "A" spot, since they were saving it for the tournament. But we caught about 100 fish in four hours, from little bitty ones to solid (for crappie) fish of about a pound and a half. We also got three striped bass, little ones, but stripers none the less.
The Sipes showed me a ton about catching crappie, and it was a very enjoyable morning. It won't replace tarpon for excitement, but for a mess of frying fish it probably can't be beat. Thank you, gentlemen!
Remember- life is short- GO FISHING!
And life is great and I really love my work!
John Kumiski
www.spottedtail.com
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